


Unthinkable

by MissScorp



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama, F/M, Family, Friendship, Horror, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-07-13
Packaged: 2018-05-22 11:18:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 66,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6077391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissScorp/pseuds/MissScorp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The moment Daryl Dixon looks in her eyes, he knows she's done the unthinkable. How does he know? Because he's done the unthinkable, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The moment he looked in her eyes, he knew she'd done the unthinkable. The moment he saw that mixture of shame and guilt, horror and anguish, vulnerability and rage, he knew she'd been pushed to do the inconceivable. He could tell she's doing her damnedest to keep it together, to keep all the hurt that's rolling around in her head and in her heart locked inside. He knew she was like a reservoir about to burst at the seams from the gathering pressure. Already the walls of the dam were crumbling down, the jagged pieces of concrete turning to dust long before they hit the sunbaked dirt.  _She ain't got no tears left to cry_ , he realized, his heart throbbing like a bad tooth inside his chest. Seeing Kat-  _his_  Kat- this broken scared him almost as much as nearly being bled over that trough in the Terminus slaughterhouse had.

 _Shit_ , was his first and only rational thought. Over and over it played through his head, like a record player that had gotten its needle stuck in the vinyl grooves. It's the most appropriate word in his opinion.  _No, that ain't right,_ he thought as he drew in a breath, held it and then released it, slowly. Bullshit was what it all was. Complete and utter  _bullshit_. He could feel the anger and fear and grief forming greasy Ping-Pong sized balls in the pit of his stomach. For a moment, just one, he felt like he was going to lose what little contents were in his stomach. He bore down, though, swallowed it back, locked all the bullshit trying to force its way out right back up inside. He can't show any hint of weakness. The others were all counting on  _him_  to be strong.

She _needs me to be strong._

It's that thought that rolled through Daryl's mind as he stood there, watching as Kat continued to shovel dirt into a half-full grave bearing the body of her younger sister, Jolene with her bare hands. He couldn't bring himself to speak. Anything he might want to say wouldn't bring her the comfort that she needs at that moment. Ain't like he ever claimed to be some damn orator, though. He knows that he lacks Carol's way of saying exactly what needs saying when it needs saying. And he definitely wasn't like Hershel, who had possessed a knack for offering words of wisdom and comfort when they were needed the most. He desperately wanted to reach out to her, to touch her, to draw her into his arms and let her know that he was there, that he understood exactly what she was going through, that it was gonna be okay, that she ain't gotta worry about being alone now that he'd found her, but he knows it's all bullshit. It ain't gonna be alright, it ain't ever gonna be alright, how can it be alright when this world was a shitty place that demanded so much from people who already had so damned little as it was?

It wasn't like this world had ever been a decent one. No, it had never been a good world, nice world, safe world for him and Kat. For them, it's always been a cruel, cold, and dangerous world. Yet even he's amazed at the new depths to which its sunk. He'd learned a long ass time ago that this world liked screwing with your head. And that it especially loved to coil up inside your consciousness like a timber rattler, waiting patiently for that right moment to lunge, to strike, to inject you with its crippling toxin. A venom that caused emotional and physical pain to merge together in a recipe that was designed to spell your end. He well knew what it felt like when that snake sunk it's fangs into your flesh. He knows how its poison feels as it pumps into your veins, as it undulates beneath your skin, crippling you just a little bit more with every breath you take.

He also knows that after the snake has bitten you that it will take your memories and twist them into a bowline knot, forcing you to relive every trauma, every dark moment, every horror over and over until you think you will go mad from the overload. The viper delights in your pain, in the sound of your screams, in the taste of your tears. It doesn't give a hoot about your suffering or about how you think it's all unfair. It simply coils around you, waiting for the moment when you collapse to your knees, utterly gutted with despair and begging; pleading for it all to end. It knows that only when you have nothing left, when you are completely defenseless, when you are at your most vulnerable, that that is when it can finally have its way with you. Then and only then will it take your mind and crush it as though it is nothing more than a field mouse it lured from its den.

Hallucinations will come and go then, some so powerful that you won't know what's real and what's not.

 _Shit_ , he thought then,  _even when the hallucinations ain't real, the nightmares sure as hell are_.

What tears Kat had left to shed were streaming down her gore-splattered cheeks now. She bows her head, taking short, gasping breaths that make his own chest burn. He can't take it. He can't stand there and do...  _nothing_. He just  _can't_. Not after forty years of...  _everything_. He was her first, she was his only, and they were all that was left of a world that ceased existing when everything went to hell. She knew his every secret, he knew her every fear. She'd let him crash on her floor whenever he showed up piss ass drunk, he'd held back her hair as she threw up after the one and only time she'd drank 'shine. She'd patched him up whenever he was on the losing end of a fight, he'd beaten the shit outta her father the one time he knocked her around. She'd taught him about what plants worked to make poultices and which would relieve pain, he'd taught her how to shoot a bow and track game.

They'd protected each other.

They'd watched out for each other.

They'd kept each other strong.

They'd helped each other to  _survive_.

They'd loved each other.

He loved her still.

Daryl didn't know he'd crouched beside her until he was reaching for her hands. Small hands, he remembered as he took hold of them, with quick, clever fingers. Small hands that were soft as feather down as they caressed his skin, sewed his flesh together, or worked out the kinks in his overtaxed muscles. Small hands that were like blocks of ice, he realized, and trembling even more violently than Merle's had whenever he was detoxing. She pulled her hands from his with a small murmur of protest, plunged them right back into the dirt, shoved more into the hole.

 _"_ Stubborn-ass woman _,_ " he muttered as he grabbed hold of her hands again. "Hey, cut it out!"

"Daryl..." she pleaded as she tried to pull her hands free. "I gotta bury her. I gotta bury Jo."

"Quit it," he ordered in a thick voice. "Kat..."

"I gotta bury her," she repeated in a whimper. "I gotta bury Jo."

"Kat..."

"It ain't right to just leave her," she insisted. "Not without burying her, first." Her voice cracked; broke. "Damn it, she's my sister..."

"I'll do it," he told her gruffly. "A'ight? I'll bury Jo for you."

"No." She shook her head back and forth in a succession of quick, jerky movements that knocked loose whatever she'd used to tie her hair back with. Tawny brown hair spilled into her face and covered eyes he knew were the color of smoke. Eyes he saw that were rimmed in red, suspiciously wet, achingly vulnerable, and brutally sad. Seeing her like this hurt him a helluva lot worse than shooting himself in the side with his crossbow had. He could fix himself. Weren't no band-aid that could patch up her injuries. "No, I won't all-"

"Ain't up for debate."

"Daryl..."

"I said it ain't up for debate." He took her elbow and gently pulled her to her feet. "Now, c'mon," he said. "Let's go."

She gave in without another word. That she did scared him even more. His Kat would never give in this easily. She'd continue to argue just for the sake of arguing. That she didn't told him clear as day that she'd reached her breaking point. She reached down for her bow, the one that he'd given to her before the shit hit the fan, and her quiver of arrows. Soon as she straightened, she swayed, would have fallen to the ground face-first had he not caught her against him.

"That's it." In one motion, he swept her up into his arms. "Won't go on your own? Then I'm carryin' your mule-headed ass outta here."

"Daryl, I can-"

"This ain't up for debate, either." He turned with her, looking first at Glenn who'd kept an eye out on the road for any trouble, then over at Rick, silently telling them that she was his and that he wasn't leaving her here to whatever fate decided to do with her. He saw suspicion and distrust flicker on the younger man's sweaty face. It rankled, that mistrust, but he told himself it was just the law of the land. You distrusted everyone until they'd proven themselves worthy of your trust. It was how you survived in a world where the enemy wasn't just some mindless geek hell-bent on having you for chow. They'd all been through a lot and trust had, after all, become as much of a commodity as everything else in this world.

Daryl also knew that while he could vouch for Kat, telling them how there weren't no damn body more trustworthy or more honorable than this woman, his word would only carry so much weight. It was up to Kat to earn their trust and respect. She had to earn her place in the group, same as everyone else had.  _And if they find that they can't accept her_? Well, then, he'd find them somewhere else to live. Weren't the first time it'd been the two of them against the world. He much suspected it wasn't going to be the last time, either. He just knew that he couldn't- _wouldn't_ , he corrected, let her go. Not after spending all these years subtly trying to find her. She was the only one left, the only other person besides Merle who'd ever given a shit about him. He wasn't giving her up. Family was everything and she was the last thing remaining that even remotely resembled that. Rick must have sensed his inner turmoil because he stepped forward and set a gentle hand upon his shoulder.

"Go," he told him in that quiet way he had. "Take care of your friend. We'll finish burying her sister."

 _I didn't bury Merle_. Why that thought burrowed its way to the forefront of his mind at that moment, he didn't know. Now that it had wormed its way in, he couldn't let the damn thought go. Those final, unbelievable moments he'd spent with his older brother slithered into his visual field, superseding everything else in his mind. He could see Merle, his face, pale and rotting, his yellow eyes feral pools of hunger- an  _animal's_  hunger- his lips a twisted, crimson smirk as he lumbered towards him. He can see himself pushing his brother back, again and again and again, until he realizes that he's got no choice and that he's gonna have to put his brother down like the animal he's become. He sees the sun glint off the knife that's suddenly in his hand right before he does the unthinkable, the inconceivable, the unbelievable, the unforgettable.

 _Shit_... is all he can again think as his mind struggled against the chains of this new torture being inflicted upon him.  _Is that how it happened between you and Jolene, Kat? Did you find her turned and tried to push her away until you knew you had no choice but to put that arrow in her?_ He bent his head to look at the woman with her head cradled upon his shoulder, eyes closed and her face streaked with blood and sweat and tears. He wondered if those final haunting moments were what she was seeing, that she was relieving, that she was cursing herself over and over for having been a participant in creating.

He felt Rick squeeze his shoulder and glanced again at him. He saw the sympathy and understanding shimmering in those pale blue depths. Yeah, he knew Rick would get it, that he'd understand what happened, why she'd done what she'd done. They'd never talked about what happened that day he went off to find Merle. Not that there'd been time to discuss anything what with the Governor threatening to gut them all if they didn't hand over Michonne. Daryl much doubted that Rick would ever ask him about whether or not he found Merle, if he was okay, if he'd up and gone off on his own, if he was dead. He'd long suspected that Rick knew he'd been forced to do the one thing, the only thing, the last thing he could do for his brother.

_Same as the kid did for his mom._

"Go," Rick says in that voice that somehow managed to masquerade as a gentle suggestion coated inside a firm command. "We'll finish up here and meet you back at camp."

Nothing more needed to be said at that point. Rick had said it all when he'd told him to take Kat and go back to camp. However, Daryl knew that he was also quietly telling him that she deserved a chance to prove herself, to become one of them, to be one of them. It was also Rick's way of silently acknowledging that he needed this:  _her_ , and giving it to him.

His voice was a bit shakier than he'd have liked when he said, "Thanks, man."

Rick just squeezed his shoulder again. "Don't mention it, brother."

"No-" Kat began, but Daryl cut her off before she could launch into the litany of reasons she'd try to give for why this was for her, alone, to do.

"Quiet."

"Daryl-"

"I said quiet."

For once, Katherine Mason did exactly what he told her too. Daryl figured hell must be freezing over. Weren't no damn way that Kat would ever obey an order like that.  _Not without breaking my balls about it, first._ Then he remembered that hell was  _this_  world. This sick and sadistic world that had managed to take away so much from a people who had so damned little as it was. This cruel world that had just found a way to take a little bit more from someone else that he cared about.  _That_ , he realized as he looked again at the woman in his arms,  _is when you realize just how dangerous a place that this world has become_. 'Cause just when you think it's over, that the pain is going to stop and the healing actually begin? That's when you find out that the snake has just found a new person to infect, to taunt, to torment.

 _Shit…_ is all he can think as he slowly made his way out of the clearing.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Kat's head throbbed, and her belly cramped. Yet neither ached with the same fiery intensity her heart did. She'd finally stopped crying at least. The tears, a woman's tears for the family and friends that had been lost, were petrified inside her. She had seen more death in one lifetime than most people saw in twelve. She'd long ago become numb to its cruelty, to its absolute certainty, to its awful truth. And that, more than anything else, made her the saddest. Nobody should ever get  _used_  to death. It just wasn't something you should ever allow to roll off your back.

_Not even medical examiners really get used to death._ No, they just inoculated themselves by having a work persona that allowed them to deal with the ugliness of their job. All life was precious, and in a world where it could be ended in the blink of an eye, it was something that should be hailed as the gift it was. Again, she saw the face of her younger sister as she'd last seen it: grayish skin stretched taut over fragile bone, feral eyes staring at her as she screamed her name over and over, that Kewpie doll mouth stained crimson by the entrails she'd torn from the squirrel with her bare teeth. It all played again and again in a never ending loop that only heaped more misery and guilt on a heart already swelled to near bursting. Seeing Jolene become one of  _them_ , knowing she would have torn into hers or Jackson's or Bo's flesh had she been given the chance caused her stomach to pitch; roll. Nausea crashed over her in waves and for a moment she was afraid she would vomit what contents she had in her stomach all over Daryl.

"I'm queasy," she breathed out through clenched teeth.

He made a  _ttch_  sound. "See what happens when you're stubborn?" That dark rasp rolled over her, into her, instantly bringing desperately needed comfort and warmth to her battered and bruised heart. "You get sick."

A smile ghosted her lips. She hadn't really expected to get much sympathy out of him. No, the way Daryl saw it, if she'd done as he'd asked the first time he asked it, she wouldn't be about to toss her cookies all over the place. Still, there were images to be maintained, pretenses to be kept up, a game needing to be played. The apocalypse hadn't taken away everything, after all. It hadn't claimed Daryl.  _And so long as I have him, I'm okay_.

"I'm sorry I didn't listen to you..."

He made another sound, like a low hum, down deep in his throat. "No, you ain't." He glanced down at her. "You just want sympathy outta me and you ain't gettin' it. Now, shut it."

Mouth said one thing, eyes another. His eyes had always been the windows into his soul. You wanted to know what Daryl was thinking; feeling? Look him in the eye and you'd know. Right now? She saw a whole lotta things swimming around inside those blue-green eyes of his.

"Daryl..."

"Shut it, willingly," he stated in a soft rumble, "or I'm gonna gag you."

Kat knew he'd do it, too. Wasn't the first time the wretched man had gagged her because she wouldn't shut up. Yet, in spite of the very real likelihood of a dirty rag being stuffed into her mouth, she found she was unable to do as he ordered. It'd been a long time since they'd seen each other, since they'd been together, since they could do something as mundane as  _talk_.

"I missed you, Daryl."

God, she'd missed him. She'd never stopped believing that they'd find each other. They'd been through too much, said too little and loved nowhere near enough. Yet even she had started to wonder about when their paths would finally cross again. She'd lingered around the area she assumed he would for as long as was possible. She'd followed what game there was because she'd thought it would be what he'd do. When pickings got slim she'd moved her small family, always keeping an eye out, looking for a sign or clue that said he was nearby or passed through. She'd known he was alive because she'd come across Merle a few months after they'd been separated and he'd told her Daryl was with a group of people they'd met up with while heading to that "bullshit refugee center" in Atlanta. Merle had promised to go and find him, to bring him to the small house he'd gotten them settled in. That he hadn't done so could only mean one thing.  _Aw, shit_ , she thought as she studied that stoic profile. She didn't ask him to confirm or deny her suspicions, though. No, she figured he'd tell her what happened in his own time.

"I kept an eye out for you," she said to him instead. "I tried to stick with the areas I thought you would. Figured we'd run across each other at some point."

"You're damned set on talkin', ain't you?" He shook his head. "Chatterin' magpie, I swear."

"Only way I know how to get you to talk is by talking." He scoffed just as she'd assumed he would. He always shrugged off whenever she told him about how much she loved listening to him talk. "I keep tellin' you that a hundred years can pass and the sound of your voice will still cause my bones to melt like butter."

He gave her a look that told her he thought she was plumb loco before looking away and telling her to, "Shut it."

That was his response to any sort of flirtatious or playful comment:  _shut it_. Compliments or personal innuendos of any sort tended to unnerve Daryl. He simply didn't have the social skills necessary to navigate those particular waters. His family had been incapable of imparting those necessary skills to him. Saying Daryl's upbringing had been a nurturing one was about as true as saying the walkers were only being friendly when they bit you. Whenever his dad did manage to remember his existence, it was either with his belt or the back of his hand. There had been many a night where he'd snuck in through her bedroom window after his father had taken his drunken rages out on him, his body battered and bruised and broken from his attack.

_I hope you suffered in the end, you no good, rotten son of a bitch_ , she thought as she fingered the hair at the back of Daryl's neck.  _What your dumb ass deserves after everythin' you did to Daryl. And to Merle._

Daryl had been too busy after that with playing the crap hand life had dealt him to worry about things like girls and dating. Besides that, most of the girls who did actually take notice of him weren't the sort he'd look twice at.  _And the rest of 'em_?  _Well, the rest were just looking for a way to piss off their rich daddies and boyfriends_. Her lip curled with distaste.  _He needs a woman with substance, with brains and guts_ , she mused as she surreptitiously studied his face.  _A woman who is willing to stand at his side through whatever this world tosses at him and who'll have his back no matter how bad shit might get_.

That she was, in essence, describing herself was not lost upon Kat. She'd been in love with Daryl for as long as she could remember. There wasn't a time where she could not remember loving him, in fact. However, just because she loved him, and just because there might be a part of him that loved her in return didn't mean she warranted any sort of special treatment. This world consumed the weak. She  _wasn't_ weak. He hadn't taught her to be anything less than what he was: a survivor.

She tucked her face into the curve of his neck before releasing a shuddering breath and saying, "You can put me down now, Daryl. I'm okay to walk."

"I ain't puttin' ya down."

"I can't get my balance if I ain't on my feet."

"Yeah, well," he muttered, "I said I ain't puttin' ya down."

She saw that the world going to hell hadn't curbed his obstinate nature none. She heaved a sigh, counted to twenty before saying as calmly and reasonably as she could, "Daryl, you ain't carryin' me all the way to wherever it is you're takin' me."

He ignored her. She really should have expected that, though. He always ignored her when she was fussing about him fussing. It was just his way. There was a hard outer shell to Daryl Dixon, one that could be just as unbreakable as a steel girder and which was nearly as thick as tar. He wore his "don't fuck with me" attitude as comfortably as he did his sleeveless vest. Yet, Kat knew there was a man beneath that hard as nails exterior who keenly felt for the people he loved and protected. Earn Daryl's trust and you had a friend for life. Betray him or hurt someone close to him? There simply wasn't a pit in Hell that was deep enough for you to hide in.

"I'm too heavy for you to be carryin'," she stated firmly. "So put me down."

"Ain't as heavy as that thirteen-point buck I bagged on that last huntin' trip we went on."

"That you  _drug_  me on," she instantly corrected. "And you didn't say it was a huntin' trip. You said we was just going campin'."

"Campin' involves huntin'."

"Huntin' involves you terrorizin' Bambi and his friends."

"You wanna eat, you hunt."

It was a debate they'd been having since they were fifteen and she'd convinced him to take her along with him on a hunting trip. He'd learned patience and she'd learned that there was absolutely nothing he could say that would convince her to shoot a harmless animal.  _Only took the world going to shit before I got over that particular hang-up._

"You survived just fine on the stuff I'd packed."

"Ain't no damn vegetarian."

It was all familiar, all blessedly normal. If she hadn't known how much time had passed she'd think it was only a few weeks since they'd seen each other last. She told herself that this was the normal for people with the history they had.  _Normal_. She almost wept at the novelty of it. It was going to be a long time before either of them would get over the things they had been through. They fell into a companionable silence after that. Kat allowed herself to just enjoy being with him, to being in his arms and being the one she hadn't been since they'd got separated: safe.

"Why didn't you return to camp that night?"

She'd anticipated him asking that question every night since this never-ending nightmare started. Course, she hadn't anticipated answering it while he carried her through the forest to where only he knew and to meet people who were complete strangers. However, asking him to put her down was just going to get the same reply as the last two times she'd requested he do so.

"Jo wandered off while I was fetchin' some water from the creek," she explained after he not-so-subtly jostled her. "By the time I managed to catch up with her, we had found ourselves cut off and surrounded by a group of them dead-but-not-dead walking things. Took all I had just to get her and I outta there with our skin still intact."

"And after?"

"After," she breathed out on a heavy breath. "Well, afterwards it was just too late. We couldn't get back if'n we'd even wanted too."

"Why not?"

She skimmed her lips over his whisker rough cheek. "The stress of the attack caused Jo to go into labor."

"How the hell you deliver a baby without any medical supplies or anythin'?" he grumbled. "And with walkers crawlin' all over the damn place?"

Kat frequently had found herself wondering the same thing. To Daryl, though, she said, "Honey, I can't answer how the hell I was able to deliver that baby without any medical supplies. Truth be told, if it weren't for little Jackson Tierney getting us into his families root cellar, I dunno what would have happened."

He seemed to accept that. "You shoulda kept your ass in camp."  _You shoulda waited for me_ , she translated. "Just like we'd agreed."

"I had to go and get water, honey."

She felt more than heard his sigh. She tilted her head to look at his face. Oh, yeah, that mask of his was locked firmly in place. She didn't ask how he was, if he was all right; she knew he wouldn't say whether he was or wasn't. Not that it needed saying or asking anyway. She knew Daryl like the back of her hand. She knew he was hurting. Hell, who wasn't?

"Who told-"

"Your father ordered me to go and get the water, Daryl," she cut in. "And I knew better than to tell his ass to go and get it for his own damn self."

"Yeah, well," he grumped. "I'd have gone and got the damn water if you'd have asked me to."

She knew he would have gone to have gotten the water if she'd asked him to. He'd do anything for the people closest to him. That was the sort of man that Daryl was beneath it all. Putting himself in the line of fire, doing what was needed, sacrificing his own health and well-being were all faucets of her mule-headed and moody mate.

"I had to do what I was told," she told him quietly. "I had to play the game, be what was expected and do what was needed for you, me and Jo."

"Maybe."

There was no maybe and they both knew it. Will Dixon would never have stood by and allowed his son to molly coddle her and her pregnant sister. Not without there being severe consequences.

"Daryl, you know I couldn't let you or Merle take care of me and Jo." Kat slid her hand to his cheek, stroked her thumb beneath his eye. "That's not how our world worked, honey." He closed his eyes, more a long blink than it was anything else. "You know I had to do what I did, that there was no other choice, that there wasn't any other options."

He released another sigh. "Yeah." His gaze flicked to hers, shared four decades of secrets and memories and lies. "Don't mean I'm puttin' your ass down."

She harrumphed. "Well, you gotta put me down." When his lip merely curled in that way that told her she wasn't winning this debate, she stated, "You can't coddle me, Daryl. This world consumes the weak. And," she gritted now, "I ain't weak."

"Ain't said you are."

"Then put me-"

"No."

She willed herself to be patient. It'd been a trying day for them both. Finding each other while she was on her hands and knees and burying her baby sister wasn't exactly how she'd pictured their reunion to go. Losing Jolene was a blow emotionally for him as much as it was for her. However, he was being even more ornery than usual. Briefly, she wondered why. What had happened to make him be even more stubborn than usual? The possibilities, she knew, were endless. Most of it, though, just came down to Daryl being Daryl. His wits, his skills and his bullheadedness were what had kept him alive. Something, though, told Kat that his reason for being so obstinate went deeper than merely being relieved at finding her alive.

"Daryl," she said in a practical voice, "what happens if somethin' or someone tries to attack us? I can't exactly shoot my bow from this position. And I know you're talented and all," she continued even as he mumbled again about her 'chattering like a damned magpie,' "but even  _you_  can't shoot your crossbow while carryin' me in your arms."

His lips twitched. "Somethin' comes out to attack us," he retorted with a thin note of wry amusement in his tone. "I'll drop your ass and kill it."

She gave him a dirty look. "That ain't even funny."

"And this ain't up for debate."

Kat saw that moving a mountain was going to be easier than convincing Daryl to put her down.  _He needs to do this_ , she realized as she stared into his eyes.  _And he needs me to let him do this_.

"Fine," she huffed. Then, just because she couldn't let him simply have his way she muttered, "Still being a stubborn asshole, though."

"Shit," he replied on one long breath. "That's the damned pot callin' the kettle black."

 


	3. Chapter 3

Rick Grimes had seen and done many things since the world had gone to hell, quite a few that absolutely sickened him, and a shit ton that he suspected would haunt him until the day he died. Nothing, nothing, in his opinion, could be quite as emotionally crippling as being forced into taking the life of someone you loved. The thought alone caused his belly to twist, his heart to skip a beat and his brain to completely shut down. It was unthinkable that this world—this despicable and disgusting world, could require anybody to make such a monstrous decision.

"Ah, but didn't you do the unthinkable when you decided to kill Shane?" a sly voice that may or may not have been his own whispered in his ear. "Wasn't that night the moment you realized that the only way for you and your family to survive was by doing the inconceivable?"

Rick didn't even need to close his eyes in order to recall those final moments with Shane. Unlike Kat, whose own ending moments he suspected had been spent in defending herself from her sister's frenzied hunger induced attack, his last moments with his best friend had been spent in removing the rose colored glasses he'd been wearing and seeing the truth that had all but been punching him in the face. His memories always started from the moment when he decided to walk off with Shane into those woods. What he always remembers first is that exact moment when he realized he could no longer deny how far down the rabbit hole that Shane had gone. Then he remembers the feral hatred that had been upon Shane's face, in his voice, in those last agonizing minutes they had spent together. It was then that he finally understood how the man he'd loved like a brother hated him to such a point that he wanted him dead.

On the days when he can't lock the memories away he recalls the hurt and the anger, the bitterness and regret, the sorrow and hopelessness he felt over Shane's betrayal. He sometimes remembered the taste of the bile as it rushed into his throat and scalded the inside of his mouth. The one thing that he always remembers, though, is the exact moment when he realized that he had no choice, that it was too late, that there was no pulling Shane back from the brink. Not this time. If he didn't kill him first, Shane was going to kill him.

He was going to have to do the unthinkable if he wanted to survive.

Yet even with all the bad blood that had been between him and Shane in the end, stabbing him with that knife had come at a great personal sacrifice. Taking any life wasn't something you could do without there being some sort of consequences attached. Rick knew that from his years working as a Kings County Sheriff's Deputy. He understood it. It was an accepted given he'd accepted the moment he put on his badge and gun. Any time he'd been forced to fire his gun on duty had carved away another piece of his heart, created another small rip in his soul. The toll exacted for killing Shane had been a deeply personal one. He'd almost lost his family. However, they weren't talking about shooting a walker, a criminal, a friend or even a fellow survivor who'd been injured and there was no other choice but to kill them. This dead woman- _Jo,_ he silently corrected, was family. And that, in Rick's opinion, made the unthinkable all the more unbearable.

 _A sister for Kat, a brother for Daryl, Lori for Carl,_ Rick ticked the names off one by one. Each name, each relationship made fiery tendrils clench his heart, his gut to cramp and his throat clog with tears he knew he'd never shed.  _And they are just the three people that I know of who have been forced into this shit position_ , he thought with another soul crushing pang. Three people out of Gods knew how many who'd all had this world demand more of them than it had a right to demand. Three people who this world tortured simply for the goddam pleasure of watching them twist upon misery's bloody hook. Three people that this fucked up world pushed into doing what was absolutely beyond all reason. Three people who this world forced to do the unthinkable simply because it needed a laugh and chose them as its form of entertainment.

 _How much more can this world take from us?_ Rick wondered as he stared down at the growing mound of dirt in front of him. _What more could whoever is running this freakshow require of us before they will let us go? When's enough finally enough?_ Even as he thought those questions, he realized that he really didn't want an answer to any of them. They were questions that positively  _hummed_  with a plethora of possibilities-all of them even more horrible than the previous one might turn out to be. This cold, cruel and hateful world had taken so damn much from all of them already.  _And it will continue taking until it has consumed everything, including our souls._ That was the only reason why he'd entertained Abraham's idea that there might be a solution to fixing all this in Washington. If there was any chance, any hope for a future... Washington might be it. He owed it to his son and his daughter to explore all avenues, to listen to all credible ideas and search every tiny nook for whatever would provide the way that would see them survive until a better world could emerge.

"Are you sure that allowing a stranger in after everything that has happened lately is a real good idea?" Rick glanced over at Glenn. His hands were coated in dirt, his face bathed in sweat. Yet there was a determination that outweighed the exhaustion, grief and hunger haunting his dark eyes. "I mean," he continued before Rick could answer. "I'm all for giving her a chance. Shit, she deserves one after what she's been put through today. But do you think the others will be so willing to open their arms and hearts to her?"

"She's a stranger to us, yes," Rick allowed with a slight nod. "But she's not one to Daryl. He trusts her."

 _And I trust Daryl_ , he added silently. Glenn seemed to have got that point because he simply nodded and resumed pushing dirt into the makeshift grave. They worked in companionable silence for a few moments. Around them the forest was silent, the slight breeze that was blowing not even making a sound as it slid through the leaves dangling from twisted branches. Finally, when the grave was filled, Glenn sat back, hands on his knees and breathing heavily. He took a moment to catch his breath before he spoke.

"Think that's enough?"

Rick nodded. "It'll do."

"Good," Glenn sighed as he swiped his forearm across his forehead, "'cause I'm beat."

Rick could only nod in silent agreement. They were all beyond exhausted, though. They'd been walking for days. Supplies were few, tempers short. They desperately needed to stop, to rest, to regroup.

 _To grieve_.

None of them had had a chance to properly mourn the loss of Tyreese and Beth. Things had been too chaotic after they left the hospital, the need to move too great.

"So, uhm, how do you think they know each other?" he heard Glenn ask him. A smile ghosted Rick's lips.  _Do I think they are more than just acquaintances_   _is what he really wants to know_.

"I reckon they grew up together."

"Hm." Glenn mulled that over for a few seconds. "I'm kinda surprised he's never mentioned her before."

Rick silently agreed. However, he also knew that that was just Daryl being Daryl. That he hadn't told them about friends, other family or the possibility of a longtime girlfriend or wife was not all that shocking.

"You think they're related?"

"No." His lips crooked at the corners. "They're definitely  _not_  related."

"They're  _definitely_  close."

Again, Rick silently agreed. It was clear as day that Kat was more than just a passing friend, neighbor, or casual someone Daryl knew in his before life. How much more was she? Rick couldn't be sure. He had his suspicions, though. The things that had been stamped upon Daryl's face as he crouched by that grave were things that Rick had never seen on his face before. He loved her. Enough that the impenetrable mask he habitually wore had slipped off to show the vulnerable man that lived beneath. That Daryl was still an enigma after all these years was an understatement. What little they did know about his past had been doled out in very small increments and when he'd thought the information necessary. Daryl wasn't a man who liked talking about himself. Way he saw it "past was past."

 _Well, that past has returned now, brother_ , he said to the absent hunter.  _And I'm wondering how you're gonna deal with it and with her._

"I can't imagine anybody willing to argue with Daryl." Glenn let out a slight laugh. "Not if they are familiar with his temper."

Rick chuckled. "No," he agreed with a nod. "I can't imagine anybody being willing to argue with Daryl. Especially if they are already aware of how hot-headed he can be. She doesn't look intimidated by him, though."

"Neither were you." Glenn glanced over at him, a smirk twisting his lips. "Man, I still remember that first meeting between the two of you." He leaned back on his elbows and stared up at the sky peeking through the tree limbs. "I was pretty sure that you two were going to end up doing more than just taking a few swings at each other before everything was all said and done."

Rick's lips twitched as he thought back upon that first meeting.  _Has it really been two years since I first met Glenn, Carol and Daryl_? he found himself wondering a second later. It sounded right. They'd met just a few months before...

 _No, you can't think about that-_ her, he told himself firmly.  _You can't afford to fixate on everything that you have failed at doing. You can't think of all those you haven't been able to save. Not when the group still looks to you for its continued survival._

Ah, but the memories came anyway. One after another they crashed over him. He saw faces: Shane's, Dale's, Herschel's...  _Lori's._ They were all staring at him, some with eyes that were soft with that quiet compassion and wisdom they had possessed in life, some bitter with the burning hatred festering in their soul. Ah, but the one that held his attention the most was the one looking at him with eyes that told him he alone was to blame for everything that had happened.

 _I'm sorry I wasn't there for you_ , he told her.  _I'm sorry that I wasn't there to save you. I'm sorry._..

"Rick?" he heard Glenn say. There was a thick note of worry in the other man's voice that slapped back the fog that was trying to pull him towards it with gnarled, vine-like fingers. "Rick, did you hear what I said?"

Rick shook himself free of the sinewy arms trying to drag him into the past and focused his eyes upon Glenn. "Sorry, what did you say?"

"I said it's getting late." A look of concern matched the one that was in his voice. "We should head back to camp before it gets dark."

Nighttime. It was the time of day when the things that hungered with an inhuman hunger were even more terrible to deal with. You couldn't see them coming as easily, didn't always know they were there until it was too late. They all took turns keeping watch, rotating shifts so that everybody got at least a few hours of sleep. However, he knew that they needed to find shelter and soon. Everybody was running on empty.  _And that is when mistakes get made and lives placed in jeopardy_.

Rick ran a hand over his face, felt the coarse hair that tickled his palm.  _Really need to figure out a way to shave_... he thought, grinning ruefully.  _I'm on my way to looking like some castaway_. He ignored the voice that whispered to him about how they were castaway's. They weren't the exiled. They were the walking dead.  _And as long as we're still walkin',_  he thought as he climbed to his feet,  _we ain't dead_.

Muscles screamed out in protest as he stretched.  _Later_ , he told himself. Later he would rest. For now, the group-and his children specifically, needed him. Together, he and Glenn made their way from the clearing. Eyes and ears searched the silence for a whisper of sound or glimpse of trouble. Nothing, not even leaf so much as stirred. Every nerve inside Rick's body coiled. Every muscle tensed. Every hair on the back of his neck shivered.

"Rick..."

"I feel it, too."

They glanced at each other, silently acknowledging the dozens of other times they'd been in this exact same situation. None of those times had ended favorably. They much doubted that this time would either. They placed their hands near the butts of their revolvers, creeping along, barely breathing, and expecting the shit to hit the fan at any second. They'd just turned at the bend in the road when they heard twigs snapping on their left. They turned as one, their weapons drawn and aimed. They both started when they saw Kat step out from behind a tree, bow in hand and dried leaves and twigs in the strands of her long hair. She stopped when she saw them, those dove-gray eyes blinking wide at the sight of the weapons aimed at her. Pale lips trembled with the shock stamped upon her face.

"Wha..."

"- happened?" Rick interjected before she could ask whatever question was waiting to trip off her tongue. "And where's Daryl?"

"We ran into a couple of them dead-but-not-dead things," she said simply. "About a hundred yards or so in that," she pointed behind her with one finger, "direction."

"Why's Daryl not with you?" Glenn demanded.

She slung her bow on her back while heaving a disgruntled sigh. "Rambo dropped me and took out the walkers before orderin' me to come back here."

Rick had a sneaky suspicion that when she said Daryl had "dropped" her that she meant he'd  _really_  dropped her. Glenn coughed to hide a laugh and earned himself a glare for the effort. Rick wisely chose to avoid the subject and any potential feminine wrath. But there was a gurgle of amusement percolating in his belly at Daryl's audacity.

"He sent you back here?" He watched those eyes carefully shift over to him. He could tell she was doing her best to avoid looking at the spot where her sister was buried. By the flicker of emotions that flooded her eyes he knew she'd failed, miserably. Glenn must have realized it as well because he took a step closer towards him, blocking off what he could of the road.  _But how do you block off the memories_? That was a question he'd yet to answer for himself.

"Why did Daryl send you back?" Glenn asked. "Why didn't he come back with you?"

"Figured one of us needed to come back and let you know 'bout the trouble in the area."

"Where'd he go?"

"He went on ahead to warn the others in your group."

That sounded exactly like what Daryl would do. Rick slid his gun back into its holster, saw Glenn do the same out the corner of his eye. Then he looked at her and drawled, "Rambo?" His lips twitched. "I can't imagine Daryl likes that nickname all that much."

"Oh," she said with a forced cheerfulness. "He absolutely hates it."

"Which is why you call him it," Glenn said with a snicker. "Because you know that he hates it."

"Damn right." She cocked her head to the side then, smiled a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "But can you think of any other nickname that best suits that man? Besides," she added with a touch of wry humor in her tone, "jack ass?"

The hell of it was that Rick couldn't think of another nickname that more aptly suited a man with Daryl's skills. "No," he said finally. "No, I reckon that I can't." His lips curved at the corners. Not a full smile, nowhere near a full smile considering what all had happened. "I don't suggest calling him a jack ass to his face, though."

"Please," she said with a tiny sniff. "It's just me callin' the kettle exactly what he is."

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

Daryl made his way through the forest as quickly as he could. Every nerve was as taut as the string on his crossbow, every sense attuned to pick up on even the minutest of sound. Any movement that drew his attention came with a pause. He knew there was no such thing as being too careful, least of all in this new and unforgiving world that they were living in. The enemies who thrived in this world weren't just things that had been human once upon a time. Hunters of a different sort crawled through these woods, searching for food as well as for...  _sport_. His lip curled with disgust as he recalled just when it was that he'd learned about what sort of other hunters were lurking in the woods. If he hadn't interfered when he had...

_Stop it_ , he ordered as he carefully made his way out onto the road.  _Can't be thinkin' about that shit right now._ However, the things inside his head simply refused to comply. They shouted obscenities and accusations at him, reminded him of his every failure, his every sin. Flashes from the night when Joe and his bunch of marauders had been planning to rape Carl and Michonne before killing them and Rick melted into the next nightmare he'd been forced to endure:  _Terminus_.

Even now the thought of what could have happened-what nearly happened in that abandoned railroad yard had chills crawling up and down his spin. Below the disgust and horror that rippled cold and clammy over his skin with every flash of memory slammed before his visual field was a fiery realization about how he and the others were the lucky ones. They'd  _survived_. Some, like Sam, had been bled like pigs over that trough and left there to be forgotten. Dozens of others had been bled in that room before then being taken and gutted like fish.  _And consumed_ , he thought with a shudder.

It was there inside that human slaughterhouse that he had come to accept that he was gonna finally meet his maker. There had been no way to worm his hands free of the ropes that bound his arms behind him, no way to get to his crossbow, his knife or a gun, no way to stop the inevitable when it finally came. He'd been as useful as tits on a boar hog. If Carol had not showed up when she did...

_Goddamn it_ , he thought angrily.  _I_   _gotta quit my bellyachin'. Ain't got time for this shit. Not when I need to get back to camp and warn the others_.

Not when he needed to get back to Kat.

Even as that thought zipped through his head faster than a hot knife through butter, he dismissed it. He knew Rick and Glenn would make sure that Kat got to the camp safe and sound. They would make sure that nothing happened to her. He knew he could count on them, depend upon them to make sure she'd be okay until he could get back and take over. Yet the fear that was twisting his belly into knots wasn't something he could rightly control. He was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. It wasn't like he could help how he felt. Worrying about Kat, being concerned for her well-being, feeling a bit overprotective of her, well, they were just the normal things that a man who'd lost everybody else in his life tended to feel.

_I ain't losin' her like I lost Merle._

Leaves rustled on his left and he spun towards the sound, every sense on high alert, every nerve in his body primed for the attack. He was already aiming at whatever it might be that leapt out at him before he even completed the turn. Even when nothing came out to attack he stayed in ready mode. Just because nothing came at him now didn't mean something wasn't going to be coming. Besides, being too cautious, playing it too safe, well those weren't things that he either accepted or understood. It wasn't what he'd been taught and what he'd taught in return. Only those who were careful were going to make it in this new world. Only the strong were going to survive.

_You either are the hunter or the hunted_ , he thought as he finally resumed walking.  _And I ain't no damn body's bitch_.

* * *

 

They'd been walking for a number of minutes when Kat decided to break the silence.

"I want to thank you both for what you did back there."

It sounded exactly as lame as she had thought it would. It was the best she could do, though. She just didn't have the words to express just how damned grateful she was for their kindness. How do you thank two people _-two strangers_ , she amended silently, for stepping up and taking care of something that was yours to do but that you couldn't do because it felt like you were inside that grave and drowning with every wave of dirt that rained down upon you _?_  Still, the niceties needed observing and gratitude showed for what these two men had done for her.  _And for Jo_. Before she could try again to express how much she appreciated their help, Rick spoke.

"You don't need to thank..."

"Yes," she cut in before he could finish that sentence. "I do."

"No," he replied in a voice that somehow managed to be gentle while still being as hard as tempered steel. "You don't."

Despite how heavy her heart was, Kat felt a slight trickle of amusement.  _You're just as stubborn as Daryl, ain't you?_  she silently asked as she turned her head to look at him.  _Just as prideful, just as strong, just as fiercely determined to protect those that you care about._ Ah, but she could see the accumulation of everything he'd been through in the last few years haunting his eyes and shadowing his face. Experience and this cartoon circus world they were all being forced to live in had taught her how to read the face of even the best poker players.

She could see how Rick was being turned over a BBQ pit by his own grief and guilt. She could see the anger and bitterness moving in the same lateral, wave-like movement a snake used when it glided across a watery surface. She could see how he was struggling with coping with his own losses, his own memories...  _his own pain_. Kat didn't know Rick Grimes, hadn't met him until just a short time ago, but she could tell he was a man that this world-this cold and cruel and ridiculously  _demented_  world had rode hard and put up wet. Yet despite everything done to him, he'd still chosen to take on her pain, her helplessness and rage, her responsibility.  _Why_? she wondered to herself. Daryl hadn't asked him to do it.  _I certainly haven't asked him to do it_.

So why had he? Before she got a chance to ask him, Glenn glanced at her and said, "Some things just don't need thanks."

"Well, this is one of those things still requirin' one," she replied with a slight smile. "Y'all know more about the last ten miles of bad road you been walkin' than you do 'bout me."

They didn't ask how she knew that the road they'd been walking had been a bad one. It was just a universal fact that every road they walked now was a bad one.

"Daryl knows you," Rick told her in that same gentle-but-not-gentle tone. "That's all that we need to know."

"Daryl and I got history," she agreed with a slight nod. "But mine and his history is  _our_  history, it ain't yours and mine."

"Don't need history to offer compassion."

"No," she agreed with a slight nod. "No, you don't. You're right. But the fact still is that you didn't have to finish burying Jo..." her voice warbled as she spoke her baby sister's name aloud for the first time. It hurt, a bright and swift pain that almost sent her to her knees. She buckled down, shoved the pain back and squared her shoulders before resuming speaking. "Y'all didn't have to bury her and you did. I appreciate it," she said as sincerely as she could. "I appreciate it more'n either of y'all know."

Blue and black eyes met hers. Then Rick was saying in that quiet tone he'd used when telling Daryl to take her and leave, "You'd done enough already."

"No," came out as hardly more than a whisper. "No, I hadn't. If I had, then Jo wouldn't have wandered away, she wouldn't have gotten bit..."

"Can't think like that." Rick smiled to soften the severity of his tone. "You can't live in hindsight. It'll only get you killed."

"I know that." She gave a slight nod of her head. "I do know that. In here," she said tapping her head with one finger, "I know that. But convincing this fickle ole thing here about that?" She placed her hand over her heart. "Well, now, that ain't proving to be so easy."

"It won't be easy." A wealth of sentiment blazed in those softly uttered words. "I reckon that letting go of your feelings about your sister is gonna be one of the most difficult things you are ever gonna have to do. However," he said in that same firm but gentle tone. "You aren't going to have to go through this alone. You'll have Daryl and the rest of us there to help."

_Here is a good man_ , she thought as she studied him. A good man who this world had kicked around, knocked down, chewed up and spit out once it was done with him. Rick Grimes was a man, though, who was doing his damnedest to stay standin', to keep on fightin', to go on survivin'. He was also a man who was willingly chosen to take on a stranger's responsibility without ever once asking for anything in return.

And that was because he'd been forced to do the unthinkable, too. She started as the answer slammed into her.  _That's why he told Daryl that he and Glenn would finish burying Jo,_  she realized _. He knows what it feels like to be left with no choice, but the one that is the most inconceivable._ Once more Kat was reminded about how this world was a sadistic one. It was a world that had already taken more than it had a right to take. And now it had found a way to take just a little bit more from someone who'd already paid enough for whatever sin it felt he'd committed. _That,_ she thought as she looked again at the man walking beside her, _is when you realize just how dangerous a place that this world has really become. 'Cause just when you think it's over, that the pain is going to stop and the healing actually begin? That's when you find out that the snake has just found some new person to infect, to taunt, to torment._

Kat had no idea that she'd stopped walking until she felt Rick's hand settle, warm and gentle, upon her shoulder.

"Kat?" she heard him ask in a voice that was as soft as the midsummer rain. "What is it? What's wrong?"

She didn't reply at first. She wasn't sure that she could without completely falling to pieces. She slowly lifted her watering eyes to his; saw the sympathy and understanding shimmering in those pale blue depths. Yeah, Rick got it; he understood what happened, why she'd done what she'd done.

_And he ain't judging me for it_.

Nor was he going to ask her the questions that Daryl had warned her he'd be asking her she realized. He was taking what she'd done, what she'd been put through and combining it with her relationship with Daryl in order to get the answers that he needed. As touched as she was by his compassion, she knew she couldn't let him do that.

"Rick." She stopped in order to allow the emotions careening around inside her to settle again. Everything just...  _hurt_. She suspected that it would for a long, long time to come. "Rick," she tried again. "I ain't got no right to be askin' for any favors, but I'm gonna ask you to do me one anyway."

"Sure," he said kindly. "What is it you need?"

"I want you to ask me your questions. Here," she clarified when she saw his eyebrows fork. "I want you to ask me the three questions you normally ask new people here, while it's just the three of us. Rambo," she explained when she saw his questioning look. "Has already got a burr stuck in his saddle about this and I don't much care for him bitchin' in the background while we do this."

"Kat," he began but she cut him off with a shake of her head.

"You can't treat me special." She smiled to soften the harshness of her tone. "You gotta treat me just as you'd treat anybody else."

"I know that I can't treat you special," he gritted. "But-"

"No." She shook her head again. "No buts." She reached up to cover the hand on her shoulder with her own. "You know you gotta ask me these three questions. Now c'mon," she commanded. "Ask 'em."

"I..."

She squeezed his fingers reassuringly. "If'n I'm being given a chance to join your group..." she paused; smiled. "Then make it right. Ask me your questions."

Rick gave her a frustrated look. "Why are you so damned set on me doing this?"

"You met the kettle." Her voice was gentle and the more effective for it. "I'm the pot. Now c'mon," she said. "Ask 'em."

"No." His voice held a quiet note of pleading. "I don't need..."

"Ask her, Rick." They both turned to look at Glenn, who'd been watching without saying a word. He sighed, heavily before saying, "Look, man, I get it. But, Kat's right. You have to ask her. If you don't," he paused and blew out a frustrated breath. "You know the others will. And that will set Daryl off."

Rick turned away, muttering a few choice expletives beneath his breath and raking his fingers through his hair. Kat, as well as Glenn could see he was struggling with acquiescing to her request, but they couldn't change that. Right was right. Finally Rick said, "Fine," before turning to look at her. The frustrated dismay upon his face; burning in his eyes slapped at her, but she didn't back down. This was what needed to be done. It was the way things worked in this modern world. "How many walkers have you killed?"

He didn't growl it. No, he just sounded exhausted. She felt his hand shift and his fingers clamp on hers in a silent plea to let this be the only question he had to ask her. However, she knew as well as him that it wasn't. And if she had to force him to ask those questions, she would. The one thing this world had taught her was how to not shy away from the uncomfortable situations it often required its victims to face.

"I don't know the exact number..." she admitted with a sigh. "I stopped countin' after the first couple dozen. I reckon I've probably killed close to a hundred or so by now, though."

"Why did you stop counting?" Glenn asked.

Kat glanced at the young man, saw the genuine curiosity as well as his own dark things stamped upon his face. Glenn was another that this world had taken and tossed around until he got strong enough to push back. His traumas may not have been the same as hers and Rick's, but they were no less terrible.  _Who hasn't this world tossed onto the rack and carved into pieces_? she found herself wondering.  _Is there anybody who doesn't bear witness to this worlds cruelty_?

Rick saying her name drew her out of her reverie. She looked at him, saw the concern upon his whiskered face.  _You need a shave_ , she told him silently. Aloud though she said, "It just don't seem right to keep score of how many poor, unfortunate souls I'm sendin' on to whatever hell might be next." She glanced over her shoulder at the place up the road where Jolene had been buried. "Not all of 'em asked to get sick. Not all of 'em chose to become zom...  _walkers_ ," the word tasted as foreign as it sounded. "And despite what all they've become, they are still human beings."

"Who will kill you without a thought or a care."

"Yep, I know that, Glenn." She had learned that when her sister nearly latched onto her jugular with her teeth. "But that don't make what we do right. Killin' is killin' and accordin' to the good Book, wrong. Way I see it, we all gotta answer for what we done. Only it ain't to the law that we gotta be doing our answerin' too."

Both men accepted that answer. She saw that Rick was going to leave it at that and swallowed a smile.  _Yup, just like Rambo_ , she thought.  _Well, guess I will have to treat you just as I treat his stubborn butt_.

"Ain't there another question you need to be askin' me?" she reminded him gently. "Somethin' about how many humans I've killed?"

He shook his head. "It don't matter..."

"Three," she gave him the answer anyway. "I've killed three human beings since this whole nightmare began. Two sick sons of bitches that deserved it, and a mentally unstable woman who damn sure didn't."

"Why did you kill the two men?"

It was Glenn who asked the question, but it was Rick she gave the answer.

"I killed them because they raped and killed a little girl," she told him quietly. "And," she added in a hard whisper, "I'd damn sure do it again."


	5. Chapter 5

_Where the hell are they_?

A glance at the darkening sky told him that it'd been well over an hour and a half since he'd sent Kat back to warn Rick and Glenn about the walkers.  _They should be back by now_ , he thought as he balanced his crossbow across his knees. He thought he detected movement at the edge of the trees on his left and swung his gaze over to inspect, eyes narrowed into slits and fingers curling upon the weapon never far from his side.

"You realize," Carol said as she joined him a few minutes later, "that sitting here and glaring at the road won't make them appear any faster."

"They shoulda been back by now." Daryl looked up as she took a seat beside him. "Ain't back in ten minutes, I'm gonna go out and look for 'em."

Carol set a gentle hand on his arm. "You could try and be patient," she advised with a gently understanding smile. "I'm sure there's a good reason for why they aren't back yet."

"Like they got set upon by some damned walkers?"

"Or maybe they returned to your friend's camp so she could gather up her things."

_Shit_. He hadn't thought of that when he spouted off at the mouth.  _Makes sense though_ , he realized with a grimace. Kat had only had the clothes on her back and her bow and arrow when they'd come upon her burying Jo.  _Hell, she ain't even got shoes on_. Stopping to gather up hers and Jo's things before returning to camp was exactly what he'd been about to suggest before walkers had come staggering out from the trees. He felt like an even bigger asshole than he knew he was now that he was able to look at the situation and see all the possible reasons. It wasn't like he meant to bark at Carol, though. It was just that he was twisted up tighter than a twister at the moment. Daryl ran a hand over his face. Leave it to Kat to turn him inside out. Give him a trail to follow, a broken piece of weaponry to fix, or tell him to hunt something and he knew what to do in an instant. He just wasn't any good at this emotional bullshit.

And the woman knew it.

He cut Carol a look while trying to form the appropriate words to express how sorry he was for biting her head off. "Carol... I'm-"

"I know." She squeezed his arm; smiled. "You're worried about them. We all are. But there are a number of reasons for why they might not have returned just yet. Going back to her camp, gathering up hers and her sister's things both make sense. As does them stopping and checking out a potential place where we can take shelter. You said yourself that a storm was blowing this way."

A slight rumble above their heads articulated that point. They glanced up at the heavy storm clouds that were undulating like a snake as it moved across the ground. Even now the air burned with an electric current that made the fine hairs on the back of their necks quiver. The scent of coming rain kicked in their blood. Seconds later, as if they'd requested it, a pale jag of lightning cracked the waves rolling over the twilight sky.

"Gonna be a bad storm," he stated with a sigh.

"It's not like we haven't weathered bad storms before."

"Yeah." He pushed himself to his feet. "Should go and tell the others. Gonna need to get something rigged up so people will at least stay dry tonight."

Carol nodded and together they made their way back to where the others were gathered.

"Any sign of them?" Maggie asked as soon as she spotted them. At the shake of their heads, she let out a sigh and raked her fingers through her hair. "Where could they be?"

"They-"

Whatever Carol might have been about to tell the dark haired woman was halted when Maggie let out an excited sound and jumped to her feet. Half-turning, Daryl saw Glenn making his way through the trees that lined the right side of the camp. Relief quickly turned into a double shot of concern laced by a fear chaser when he saw that neither Kat nor Rick joined him. His body coiled into one tightly wound spring as reason after reason for why they weren't with him danced through his feverish brain.

Glenn must have sensed his anxiety because he said, "They're fine," as soon as he got close enough to speak without shouting.

"Where are they?"

_Damn_ , he hadn't meant to growl it at him. A reproachful look from Maggie made him feel even worse for his surliness. Glenn, though, just smiled and greeted his wife with a kiss.

"Hey, babe," he said. Then he looked over at Daryl. "And Rick and Kat are at a small farmhouse we found about half a mile up the road."

"Why did they remain at the farmhouse while you came back to camp?" Maggie asked with a lifted brow. "Why didn't they come back with you?"

"Well, Kat- Daryl's friend," he explained when he saw his wife's questioning look. "Offered to come and get everyone while we checked the house, but Rick figured Daryl would hang us by our toes if we let her."

Daryl twitched a bit at hearing that. Were his feelings about Kat really that transparent? One look at the faint speckle of amusement shining upon Carol and Maggie's faces suggested they were. He felt an unfamiliar heat creeping into his cheeks. The urge to squirm came over him, horrifying him almost as much as it annoyed him.

"Quit it," he muttered at both women before looking at Glenn and willfully switching the subject away from his overprotectiveness to something he felt more important to discuss. "You found a farmhouse?" At Glenn's nod he asked, "Where at?"

"It's a bit northeast of us," Glenn replied. "I spotted it after we returned to where Kat had been camping with her sister and..." he trailed off; grimaced.

"And?" Maggie asked her husband. "And what?" When he didn't immediately respond she repeated her question, a bit more firmly this time. "And what, Glenn?"

Glenn blew out a frustrated breath and refused to meet Daryl's eyes. "Dammit," he mumbled. "I wasn't supposed to say anything. Kat wanted to be the one to explain it to you, man."

"Explain what to me?" Daryl asked him.

"Dammit," Glenn muttered again. "Daryl-"

"Explain what?" This time he growled it and didn't bother with feeling like a complete asshole about it. "What's that woman hidin'?"

"Not  _hiding_ ," Glenn said slowly, "so much as she was just waiting for the right time in which to tell you about it."

"Tell me about what?" Now there was a warning note in his tone that said he was reaching the end of his patience and fast. He felt Carol set a hand on his arm, heard her urge him to "calm down," but he just couldn't stop the frustration cruising through his veins or popping out his mouth. "What's Kat gotta tell me about?"

"About why she didn't try and search harder for you..."

"Yeah?" he bit out. "And why's that?"

"'Cause, man." Glenn blew out another breath. "She's got two kids she's been ensuring the well-being of. A ten-year-old boy she called Jackson." He paused, let that sink in before adding, "And a two-year-old boy named Bo."

* * *

 

"So," Rick said after helping Kat move a huge dresser back against a wall. "Your sister and the kids are why you didn't go and look for Daryl?"

From the corner of his eye he saw Kat glance at him. " _Couldn't_ go look for him," she clarified. "I couldn't go looking for him."

"What do you mean by couldn't?"

"Well, in the beginning there was just too many of them and not enough of me. Jackson wasn't even able to hold a gun, much less shoot one. And Jo weren't in any shape to be moved after giving birth to Bo." She glanced at him, a rueful smile tugging at her lips. "Rambo might have trained me good, Rick, but even I knew I couldn't fight off a horde of them dead bastards while trying to get a newborn, an eight-year-old..." a pause was coupled with a look that Rick knew all too well. Shit, how often did he have to see that sick down to the depth of the soul expression and not know its cause? "And a woman who'd just given birth to wherever it was that he and Merle might have gone. So we holed up in that root cellar for as long as we could."

"Why didn't you head to the refugee center in Atlanta like everybody else once it was..." he took a moment to consider what word was most appropriate. "Well, once it was safer for Jo to travel?"

She visibly considered her answer as she swept her tawny hair up into a messy bun and secured it with a clip she'd found in the bathroom. Finally she said, "By the time Jo was recovered enough to help with keeping an eye out for the dead-but-not things the center had fallen. After that?" She shook her head. "I just did what I felt was best for the three people who were basically under my care and protection. I had to put Bo and Jackson before my wants and needs." She glanced at the toddler happily banging together some blocks they'd found. "I'm the only mother that boy has... that both boys have," she corrected with a sigh. "It's my responsibility to see that they make it out of this hellhole alive."

"You've been doing what you have to in order to survive."

And that, Rick knew, was because of the survival training Daryl had given her before the rise of this cold, cold world. Those lessons were what helped her to make it in a world where hostile wasn't just something trying to rip your abdomen open with its yellowed teeth. And not only did she manage to survive, but she'd also managed to keep two kids from being consumed by the madness, as well. That was no easy feat as he well knew.

"I just been doin' what Daryl and I been doin' our whole lives. That don't make me special. Or make what I did special," she said simply. "I just did what was necessary. What you did when you stepped up to be your groups leader," she added with a slight smile.

Rick went to reply, but a gurgle came from the corner of the room they'd portioned off in order to corral the all too active two-year-old while they set about righting what they could. He indicated the grinning toddler with a nod of his head.

"He's happy, healthy and most importantly?" he said as he reached over to stroke his fingers over that dark mop of hair. "He's here. And that?" He glanced over at her; smiled. "That's all that matters."

Her expression relaxed into a kind of intense concentration, almost like a sense of doubt. Rick waited for her to say whatever it was that was tumbling around inside her head. Finally, she just looked away, mumbling, "Maybe."

Rick felt his lips twitch as the irony of having found someone who was nearly equal to Daryl in terms of disposition washed over him. He wondered if she was even aware of how much like him she tended to act and sound like. He very much doubted it. It was clear, however, that Daryl and Kat were close enough that they'd passed specific behavioral traits and character flaws to the other. Course, just how many of Kat's own traits and flaws had managed to rub off on Daryl, he didn't know. It was going to be interesting to find out, though. Daryl had lost quite a lot of that hardened edge he'd had when they first met back at that wooded camp on the outskirts of Atlanta. Becoming a member of the group, seeing that he belonged and was needed had gone a long way to quieting the restless soul that lived and breathed inside Daryl. That didn't mean that he was completely tame, oh no. The brief time they'd spent in Alexandria had showed him just how much of that wandering spirit was still burning inside Daryl. Bo whimpering and begging to be picked up snagged Rick's attention. He smiled down at the toddler looking up at him with the same gray eyes as the woman behind him.

"You survived some impossible odds," he pointed out while bending down to pick the toddler up. "And you did it despite not having a large group there to help with shouldering a lot of the burden and responsibility."

_I had people there to shoulder a lot of the burden and assume some of the responsibilities and it still drove me over the edge_ , he added silently. He bounced the boy in his arms, smiling as Bo babbled and gurgled in that same happy way that Judith did. He ignored the faint twinge of panic at having not one, but two toddlers to worry about taking care of. They'd managed to take care of each child thus far. They'd find a way to continue doing so. A dozen heads, he rationalized as he took one of the boys tiny hands in his, were always better than one.

"Still don't make what I did special." Kat reached down and picked up some bed linen that had been tossed out of the hall closet during the last ransacking of the place. "Or make me some kind of hero. Jo was my blood, my kin. Same as Bo. Jackson became mine simply 'cause there weren't nobody else to take care of him. So it fell onto me to take care of them, to protect them. They're my kin same as your group is yours. And there ain't nothing I won't do to protect my family. I will fight to the death in order to protect what's mine," she said now in a tone of voice that Rick heard himself use more than once, "or that which belongs to someone who is mine." She lifted eyes as hard as steel to his. In them Rick read clearly about what camp she was inclined to place him and the others in. It was largely on account of their connection to Daryl, he knew. Still, that sort of fierce loyalty went a long way to defining the heart of the woman. "I'll lay down my life if that's what's needed to keep this family safe."

She straightened, arms loaded with musty bed linens, was about to turn and carry them out when Jackson came skidding into the room, a telltale look of concern stamped upon his coffee colored face. He glanced at Rick, clearly wavering back and forth about staying where he was or making a beeline over to where Kat stood on the opposite side of the room. Whatever had happened to traumatize the boy was something known to only him and Kat. He hadn't asked because he hadn't felt it his place to ask about something so personal. He suspected, though, that whatever it was had something to do with the two men that she'd told him she'd killed. A brief flash of what he done to the man who'd tried to molest Carl flashed through his mind and provided a clue as to what had happened to the boy. If Kat expected him to judge her for what she'd done she was mistaken. How could he judge her when he'd brutally stabbed a man, nearly disemboweling him, for merely daring to lay a hand on his son?

"What is it, Jackson?" he heard Kat ask him in a quiet voice. The boy glanced warily at Rick once more before darting around him and rushing to her side. "Are there people outside?"

He made indications with his hands towards the front of the house and something that Rick defined as meaning "people approaching."

"Is one of the people comin' the man you met earlier? Or is it a man with a crossbow?"

The boy shook his head and tugged urgently at her arm, indicating that he wanted Kat to follow him. She flicked her gaze instantly over to Rick's. "Rick..."

"I'll go and check things out," he told her as he handed Bo to her. "You stay here with them."

"A'ight," she agreed with only a slight look of disdain upon her face for his order. "Be careful, though."

Rick merely nodded, touched as much as amused by her concern before he quickly, but silently made his way from the room.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Rick edged slowly along the wall of the front entry hall, staying low and moving among the shadows the last rays of sunlight were casting upon the floor so as to avoid detection. He kept his eyes and ears open for any sight or sound that would confirm or deny that whomever- or  _whatever_ , he silently corrected, that was outside the house was either a friend or a hostile of either the human or inhuman kind. Two large shadows passed by the front window and he paused, hand reaching instantly for the Colt he wore strapped to his hip. Voices whispering and the door handle jiggling had electric currents of anticipation dancing in his veins, pooling in his belly. They wouldn't be getting in that way.  _At least_ , he mentally corrected, they would not get in easily and not without giving him a chance to take them out before they could gain admittance to the house.

Then he heard the light tread of footsteps in the kitchen and realized that someone was already inside the house and making his or her- or  _its_  way in his direction.  _And in the direction of Kat and the kids_. A cool calm settled over Rick as he prioritized what threat he needed to handle first. It wasn't like he had to overly think of what he was going to do. Daryl had entrusted Kat into his care when he sent her back to warn him and Glenn about the walkers. That made her, as well as the two kids in her care, his responsibility.

_I won't fail to keep them safe_ , _brother_ , he promised the absent man.  _I will do whatever I have to in order to keep them safe._

He felt a shift deep within himself, recognized it as the man he was, the law-abiding and relatively peaceful man he'd been before the apocalypse, receding into the darkness so that the man he'd had to become in order to survive this new world could handle this potential menace. He crept over to the kitchen, paused just outside the entrance, his gun held up in front of him, hammer cocked and his finger already on the trigger. He felt more than heard whoever or whatever was on the other side as they reached the open archway and without pausing to consider the danger or possible ramifications of his actions, swung around the wall to confront whoever or whatever was waiting on the other side.

* * *

 

Kat waited all of twenty seconds before deciding that she was going to  _overlook_  Rick's  _request_  that she remain with Jackson and Bo and go and help him deal with whatever or whoever might be outside the farmhouse. She felt a small twinge of guilt for her subterfuge but chose to ignore it. It wasn't like she was disregarding his order so much as it was that she was doing the right thing-the necessary thing. Someone needed to be out there and watching  _his_  back. He had kids who needed him as much as Jackson and Bo needed her. Besides that, she simply wasn't the type of woman to remain in hiding when there was protecting needing to be done.

"Jackson," she said while turning to pass Bo to the wide-eyed boy. "I'm gonna go and give Rick a hand with dealing with the intruders. You stay here with Bo, a'ight?" She saw that dark head slowly nod as he hugged the now silent toddler close. "You know what to do if'n those you saw outside turn out to be intruders and not people from Rick and Glenn's group. You take Bo and you run as fast as you can." She swept a hand over the cap of Bo's glossy hair, silently counting how many times that they'd been in this position and with her giving him that same order. Only this time she was adding something new to his instructions. "You go and you find Daryl or Glenn. Either one'll keep you and Bo safe until I can get to you. A'ight?"

Indecision and fear warred with understanding upon his face. She knew she was asking him to make decisions that even some adults couldn't make. In the before world she wouldn't be asking him to make these adult like decisions. In that world he'd just be a regular ten-year-old boy who only had to worry about how he was gonna ask his mom and dad to get him a new bike for Christmas. But this wasn't the before world. This was a world that made men out of little boys long before they were ready to be. Jackson finally nodded his understanding of her new instructions. Wide eyes that always reminded her of pools of melted chocolate lifted to hers, his brow slightly furrowed with a plethora of silent questions and concerns.

"Rick and I will be doing our best to make sure that nothin' happens to either of you," she assured him. "But this is just in case something happens."

More questions flickered inside that haunted gaze. She cupped his cheek in her palm, thumb stroking over that rounded curve of his cheekbone. "Rick is one of the good guys, Jacks," she told him gently. "He's the sort of man who protects little boys like you, not hurts 'em."

He turned his cheek into her palm with a soft sigh. It was his way of subtly asking if she was really sure about that. "I'm sure he's one of the good ones, yes." She stroked her thumb over his cheek again. "And not only do I trust him," she stated with a smile, "but Daryl trusts him. And you know that you can trust Daryl, right?"

Jackson nodded again. She was about to turn, to leave when she saw his brow feather and his eyes go bleak.  _What's gotten into him?_ she wondered. "Jacks?" she asked him gently. "What is it, honey?"

He responded by staring down at his feet. It was what he did whenever he was feeling self-confident or uncertain about something or someone. She waited, patiently, knowing that he'd let her know what was bugging him when he was good and ready. Finally, he peeked up at her, his brow arching with a silent question and his eyes moist with a desperate need that made her heart cry.

"What is it?" she asked him again. "What's buggin' you?"

_Tell me so I can make it better_ , she silently pleaded.

He chewed on his lower lip with the tips of his perfectly white teeth; clearly wavering about telling her what was bothering him. Kat racked her brain in search of a possible reason for this sudden bout of anxiety.  _What on Earth could he be anxious about_? A multitude of possibilities slithered through her brain. Uncertainty about the future, about all the changes that were gonna happen once Rick's group got there, about being around a group with men in it...

_Oh_ , she thought as one possible reason dawned. _Is that what he's nervous about?_

"Are you worried Daryl ain't gonna be wantin' you around me and Bo?" she asked as gently as she could.

_Are you scared he ain't gonna want_ you? was what she really wanted to ask him. The only reason she didn't was because she suspected she already knew that it was the reason and didn't know what or how to respond. She saw Jackson nod his head before again staring down at his feet. His small face was so achingly sad, brutally miserable and so horribly anxious that it knotted her stomach. She hated seeing anyone, or  _anything_ , in this much pain. Only Daryl had ever been capable of breaking her heart like this.

_Hell_ , she thought as she slowly crouched so they could be eye level,  _a knife to the gut hurts less than whenever Daryl looks at me with those eyes of his reflecting every ounce of the anger and pain and sorrow he's got locked up inside_. Daryl had always been self-contained, and about as hard to read as a stone tablet, but those rare times when he let the guard down and allowed her to see what was inside that head of his always about killed her. Whatever she was feeling or thinking at those times fled the moment she got a glimpse of whatever he was thinking or feeling.  _Shit, those few moments we had before the walkers showed up to spoil our reunion just about ripped my heart right outta my chest._

For those few minutes he was the Daryl that she'd known before all this shit went down, the one who'd crawled in through her bedroom window after the death of her brother and his best friend, James Michael and who'd not known what to do with his grief or with how to cope with his loss. Oh, she could tell that he still didn't know what to do with his grief or how to cope with loss. And that thick, icy reserve he'd cultivated almost from the time he was Jackson's age was still pretty firmly in place.

However, she'd seen that quite a few layers of his mask had melted away in the time they'd been apart. He'd been the Daryl that she'd seen in spades through the years, the one who wanted to be more than he was and have more than he thought he deserved. It was as if Daryl had finally grown comfortable in his skin and accepted who he was. Her lips kicked up at the corners at the irony of how an apocalypse had to happen just so he'd come around and see what she'd been telling his stubborn ass for years. Undoing close to thirty-plus years of emotional and physical abuse wasn't easy, though. He'd made progress, yes, but that didn't mean there weren't still a few hitches in his giddyup.

Jackson didn't have to become the wall that Daryl had to be. He had her to help him through his ordeals.  _And he needs me to help him through this one, now_. She pulled the quivering boy into her arms with a soft sigh, struggling to find the words that would alleviate his worry. However, no words of comfort were immediately forthcoming. She quite simply didn't know how Daryl was going to respond to well... _any_ of this. He was good with kids, always had been, but there was a difference between spending a half hour and sending the kid home and having to actually be responsible for their well-being on a continuous basis.

They'd had a moment, back when he'd decided to stay with her for a time because Merle was again serving time in prison, where they thought they were going to have a baby. They'd had a long discussion about what they'd do if the test came back positive, how they'd handle the situation, how they'd cope with the change in things. He'd been terrified, most people were when confronted with the possibility of becoming a parent, but there had also been that underlying excitement beneath his fears and insecurities that told her a part of him wanted to be a father. She'd often wondered how different things might have been if they had had children. Would he have been content to settle down? She didn't know. It was something to think about when there weren't more pressing things waiting for her to deal with. She again hugged Jackson, trying to reassure him as best as she could.

"We'll get all this figured out once Daryl and the others get here. For now," she said to the solemn boy, "take Bo and find a place to hide."

Jackson nodded and stepped away, bouncing Bo in his arms and lifting an eyebrow. Kat smiled as she stepped backwards to the door. "I will give our usual sign for when the coast is clear."

He nodded; seemingly satisfied by knowing that  _she'd_  be the one coming for him. It was just going to take time, she knew, for his trust in men to be restored.  _Hopefully_ , she thought as she stepped out into the hall,  _his faith will get returned to him the more he's around men like Rick, Daryl and Glenn_.

A shadow moving along the kitchen wall halted every thought. Every sound became amplified. Her gaze sharpened and her sense of smell became more refined. Her body became one tight coil of anticipation, every nerve tingling in readiness for whatever might lurch out of the shadows. She was just reaching for the hunting knife at her hip when she heard Daryl rasp, "I told Rick that your stubborn ass wouldn't stay put."

"Look at who's callin' who stubborn here," she replied as she slowly turned to face him. "Really shouldn't be talkin' so much shit here, kettle."

He just sniffed. "I ain't the one who couldn't obey a simple order."

"Where and more specifically  _when_ ," she huffed, "have you ever seen me obey any damn body?"

_Except you_? she added silently.  _And I don't obey you so much as trust that what you're telling me to do is the right thing_. She ignored that slippery little voice telling her that she was essentially obeying when she followed his advice. That was just arguing semantics in her mind. And there was absolutely no way in hell that she was gonna stand there and argue about something like details with herself.  _Plumb crazy enough as is,_ she thought.

"Obeyed right quick enough when I told you to go back and warn Rick and Glenn about the walkers," he pointed out with a smirk.

"That wasn't obeying," she scoffed. "That was just me agreeing with you."

"Still obeying."

"Agreeing," she clarified firmly. "I was  _agreeing_  with you, Daryl."

The wretched man merely snorted before saying, "Apples to oranges if'n you ask me."

"I wasn't asking you," she gritted. "And when have I ever obeyed you without bustin' your balls a bit about it first anyway? Answer that one, Rambo."

He took a slow step toward her. "Well, you're damn sure gonna start obeying," he told her in a dead serious tone. "Or else I'm gonna hogtie you and leave you in a corner."

She bristled at that. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me."

"And just what-"

"Your ass ain't takin' no more chances," he growled. "Not while I'm around."

One eyebrow arched upwards at that. "That so?"

"That's so."

Something flashed through his eyes then that had both her eyebrows shooting up.  _What the hell_   _is up with him?_ She was used to Daryl being a bit on the overprotective side. It was just the way that he was about those people he cared about. However, something told her that this wasn't Daryl just being Daryl. There was something, a sliver of something in his voice; upon his face that said this wasn't just about protecting her or the other members of the group.

Had Glenn accidentally let it slip about Jackson and Bo? A glance at his face revealed nothing. Not that she had really expected it too. The man was like a brick wall when he wanted to be. Well, if he thought she was going to fall in line simply because he commanded it, well, he had another thought coming. She'd been the one largely in charge of their little group for the last couple of years and done a pretty damn decent job at keeping things together until a few days ago. A couple of members deciding to turn back and head for a survivor settlement had changed the dynamics, certainly. She'd still done the best she could considering the odds she'd been facing.

_Jo still be alive if'n you listened to the old man_ , a moist voice breathed in her ear. She ignored it. She couldn't help that Jo was sick. She couldn't help that Jo never accepted that the walkers were a threat, that they weren't merely asleep, that people really died when they got bit by one.

"Yeah, well, you got a better chance of getting blood out of a turnip," she finally grumbled at him.

"It ain't up for a debate, Kat."

"Hell it ain't." She tossed her head back. "I'm gonna do what I gotta do to protect you and the others."

"You let me worry about protecting the others."

"No." She shook her head, once, slowly. "Taking care of everybody ain't all on you. Not this time." She ignored his sniff of denial. "It's on all of us. And I'm gonna do my part because I'm sick and tired of losing people."

He took another step towards her. "Kat," he said warningly.

Kat merely harrumphed. "Don't you  _Kat_  me, Daryl Dixon." She squared her shoulders and planted her fists upon her hips. "You ain't the only one who had to do some changin' in order to fit into this screwed up world of ours. I did, too. And," she added even as he grumbled something beneath his breath, "I did a decent enough job considering how I didn't want to be no damn leader in the first place."

"Yeah, well," he parroted her earlier words back at her a second before he threaded his fingers into her hair and tugged her gently towards him. "This shit ain't up for debate, either."

"That's what you think," she muttered a second before she burrowed against him.

 


	7. Chapter 7

A few hours later found Daryl standing on the front porch while the storm he'd been predicting for the last two days was coming finally unleashed its full fury upon them. Rain lashed, wind howled, and bolts of white light fractured the groaning sky. However, the small farmhouse behind him was just as warm and cozy as any animal den. Yet, he just wasn't able to bring himself around to going inside and relaxing with the rest of the group.

Even after finding that Kat was safe and sound he'd remained on edge. He'd paced from window to window, door to door, back to front until he couldn't take it no more. What exactly was bugging him, he couldn't say. He just knew he was edgy and nervous and that it was making him more ill-tempered than usual. Something was coming; he could feel it in his bones. He just couldn't identify what the  _something_  was.

 _Not yet at least_.

He'd tried to busy himself by helping with moving things around and getting the house secure, but it only served to increase his anxiety more. When he found himself snapping at everybody who crossed his path, he'd decided to haul his ass outside for a bit of a breather. It wasn't like he could help how he was feeling. He lived by his gut. And it was telling him that the shit was about to roll down the hill. He blew out a breath and tipped his head back to watch as more lightning fractured the clouds overhead.

This storm was gonna get much worse before it was gonna even start getting any better. The howl of the wind was full of teeth and threats now. The rain was a smothering curtain that hid any lurking predator from his view and the lightning a dangerous weapon he had no defense against. His fingers clenched upon the wood railing, hard enough he could hear his knuckles crack. It was making him itchier than a deer in a roomful of hunters.

Arms coiled suddenly around his waist in a familiar embrace and a soft kiss was pressed to the back of his shoulder before he heard Kat ask, "Wanna tell me about what's got your panties in a bunch?" in that low, husky voice she tended to use whenever he was being a royal asshole. It managed to settle and soothe his frazzled nerves even as it reminded him about how he needed to make amends for his piss poor attitude.

"Panties?" He tossed her a mildly amused look from over his shoulder. "I ain't wearing no damn panties."

"You prefer I use boxers, knickers or tighty whities instead? Or…" Her lips curved into a suggestive smile as her hand drifted across his stomach. "Have you started going commando finally?"

He caught her wandering hand before he burned to death from the fire she was starting and muttered, "quit it," at her.

He felt more than heard her sigh.

"Still no fun, I see," she replied in a playfully morose voice. "Fine. Guess if I can't distract you with subtle innuendo that I'm obligated to return to my earlier question." She paused to allow the drum solo playing above them to die down before asking, "What's got the burr in your saddle?"

"Don't worry about it."

Why he even bothered to tell her that, he didn't know. He knew the damned woman was gonna worry. She always worried. It was her mission in life to worry. And he knew she was worrying when her arms tightened around him and she pressed another kiss to his shoulder.  _Predictable_ , he thought as a slight smirk twisted one corner of his lips. Even if some things had changed in the two years that they'd been apart, there were still those key elements that had remained the same.

"Daryl," she said gently now, "you've had somethin' stuck in your craw ever since you got here." She angled her head around to look at him. In the brief flash of light that illuminated the night sky he could see her gaze was imploring. "Can't you tell me what it is so that I can help with diggin' whatever it is out?"

He didn't immediately reply because silence was the next step in this two-step they were doing. It was a dance they'd been doing for the better part of their lives. If he noticed how easy it was to fall back into old patterns, to settle into the old routine, he paid it no never mind. The only thing that mattered was that she was here and this was how the dance went.

"Trouble coming," he muttered after the appropriate length of time had passed. "Can feel it."

"And this here little ole rainstorm is just keepin' you from goin' out and findin' whatever the trouble is and stoppin' it, ain't it?" He felt her lips curve against his skin. "Since when has gettin' a little wet scared you?"

"Are you mockin' me, woman?"

"Nooo," she said with a feigned innocence that had his lips twitching. "I'd  _never_  poke fun at you or your seeming fear of a little thunderstorm, Daryl."

"Right," he snorted. "Believe that about as much as I believe in haunts and boogers."

"Was a time where you didn't believe in walkers, yanno."

Daryl rolled his eyes. "Would you hush up? Swear," he muttered. "You're like a dammed magpie."

"You gonna make me if I refuse?" she teased. "'Cause I've got quite a lotta ideas for how you can go about shushing me."

"I got a rag that'll fit in that pie hole of yours just fine."

She breathed out a soft laugh that cruised over his already overheated flesh and stimulated his already steadily fraying nerves further. Damn, but it felt good to be out here and bantering with her. He didn't have to be as guarded with Kat or worry about saying the wrong thing and pissing her off. Kat got it, she got  _him_. She always had.

Yet as good as it felt to be trading quips with her, he still couldn't shake his twitchiness. Something was coming, he could feel it deep down in his bones and it was making him moodier than a gator with a bad tooth because he didn't like not knowing. They watched the storm as it pummeled the world around them in a companionable and comfortable silence for a number of moments.

Finally, Kat shifted; sighed. "Daryl?"

"Hrm?"

"If trouble is comin' this way then we'll handle it. Just like we always handle it," she said even as thunder barked a  _ha_. "Together."

"Yeah." He blew out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "I know we will."

"But you still don't like it."

"No." He spoke straight with her because he felt she deserved him to be straight with her. He'd already told her enough lies for one lifetime, anyway. "Ain't never liked not knowin' when the shit was about to hit the fan."

"Can't always know when shit is about to rain down on you, though. It's just-" whatever she might have said ended on a stifled shriek as more bursts of light danced between the thick velvet clouds overhead. _She ain't never liked thunderstorms_. He recalled how they'd always terrified her. Back when they'd been kids and a storm would blow in she'd either burrow under her bed or hide in the hall closet. As she got older she'd handled her fear by turning on every light in the house and the stereo or TV up to full blasting.  _Or she'd call me up and con me into comin' over and keepin' her company_.

He stifled a smile when she burrowed tighter against his back and swung an arm over her head in order to draw her into his side. "I'm sorry for being such an asshole," he sighed. "Ain't meanin' to be."

"Daryl, you know that there ain't a person inside that house who faults you for being so out of sorts tonight. In fact," she said as she placed her chin on his chest and looked up at him, "I think they prefer when you are moody. Means they know not to relax or get too complacent."

"Maybe."

"No." She spoke gently, but firmly. And all the more effective because of it. "Ain't no maybe about it. Honey, the people inside that house all look to you and Rick when it comes to things concernin' the groups' survival. You set the tone. You are the standard that they all try to reach. You're the one that lets them know when the shit is about to hit and that they need to get behind a wall as fast as they can if they don't wanna get covered in it. They count on you." Her lips curved. "Same as I've counted on you the bazillions of other times when we've nearly been screwed over by the pooch."

"We ain't been screwed by the pooch this hard before," he pointed out. "Ain't never had shit hit like this."

"No," she heaved on a sigh. "We haven't been quite so royally screwed before, that's true. However..." her teeth flashed white in the darkness. "I'd rather be in the middle of the shit with you than standing on the sidelines watching you drown."

"I'd pull your ass in."

"Hell, honey, you'd know I'd jump in to save you."

She would, too. Wouldn't matter if he told her no, to stay back, to get as far away as she could. The damned fool woman would risk her neck to save his worthless hide. It was her courage and compassion and loyalty that he loved the most about her. The old him told him that he still didn't deserve her, that he wasn't good enough for her and never would be. That him said Kat deserved someone respectable, someone decent and good, who'd help her with raising the kids asleep inside that back bedroom. 

 _She deserves a man like Rick_ , he heard the old him saying.  _She needs someone who knows how to weather through the tough times and who ain't afraid to enjoy the good_. That him told him that she didn't need some no good hillbilly who'd followed his dumb ass brother around like a lost puppy for the last thirty odd years and done whatever it was that he was told because he didn't have the balls to tell his brother to piss off. However, if he said any of this to her she'd call him a "liar" and tell him that he was really "scared" of being with her because being with her meant that he'd actually prove all of them "wrong."

It was bullshit, of course. He wasn't afraid of being with her or in proving his family wrong. He'd done that already. From out of nowhere, a memory surfaced from the night he and Carol had spent in that shelter when Carol had said to him, " _You said that we get to start over. Did you_?"

His reply to her at the time had been two simple words, " _I'm trying_."

He'd meant it when he'd told her that. He  _was_  trying to start his life over. It was a slow going process that frequently left him feeling like he'd been 'et by a wolf and shit over a cliff, but he  _was_  still trying to start his life over. But trying to start over, he realized, also meant trying to start  _again_. He didn't want to start over with Kat. They'd come too far, gone through too much to simply start over. No, what he wanted to do was start again.

He wanted to give them the chance he'd never really given them before all this shit went down. He wanted to try and build some type of life with her, have some type of a relationship, be with her without worrying that it was wrong for him to be with her. ' _Well_ ,' a voice that sounded suspiciously like Merle's whispered inside his head, ' _you ain't doing that if'n ya push girlie away from ya, now are ya, son?_ "

He didn't bother answering because he knew the voice was right. He wasn't trying if he retreated back behind the mask that was most familiar and comfortable to him, if he refused to take the second chance that this new world was offering to him, if he shrugged off this opportunity to finally be with her. Hell, weren't like there were anybody there now to mock him for being in love with the woman, or call him a sissy because he bought her some damn flowers or say he was turning into a little bitch because he was worrying about respectable things like replacing that leaky faucet in the master bathroom.

It wasn't like the effort of trying had gone and gotten him killed, anyway. Trying had already given him a new family and people he was proud to call friends. Trying to start again definitely came with some big ass benefits, none more important to him at that moment than the woman currently skimming her knowledgeable little fingers over his lower back. Trying gave him the chance to be with her.

And if there was one thing he could readily admit that he wanted, it was that he wanted to be with Kat.  _And with Bo and Jackson,_ he added silently as he turned his head and rest his lips against her forehead. He'd spent the last two years telling himself that if he managed to find Kat that he was never letting her go. Now that he had her back, he wasn't going to let her out of his sight. His life was always better when it had this she-cat in it.

"Kat?"

"Hrm?" he felt more than heard her murmur. "What is it?"

"I wanna try."

"You wanna try?" A bewildered frown knit her brow. "Try what?" She lifted her eyes to his face. "Try findin' whatever it is that might be comin'?" She glanced at the sky as more electric tendrils reached down towards the Earth. "Wait until morning. Let the worst of the storm pass first. Then we can go and check..."

"Ain't what I meant about trying," he cut in with a roll of his eyes. Leave it to Kat to take his statement about trying as him meaning he wanted to brave a severe storm in order to find whoever or whatever might be waiting to attack them. _Not_ , he added silently, that he wouldn't do it if it was what needed to be done. One quick glance at the laughing sky convinced him that keeping his happy ass at home was a much safer idea.

Then the word "we" hit him and he issued a few silent curses about her stubborn nature before staring down into her eyes and stating in a tone of voice that told her clearly he'd accept no hemming and hawing about it, "And even if I do try and go out to investigate what might be out there and huntin' us, your ass will stay here and take care of the rugrats. You hear me?"

She sniffed, once, but grumbled, "Yeah, I hear you," before muttering, "but don't you go gettin' comfortable with orderin' my ass around. I ain't always gonna listen. Or obey."

"Will if you know what's good for you."

"Just all a quiver here, Rambo," she drawled lazily. "Can't you just feel me shakin' in my boots?"

"You ain't wearin' boots," he pointed out with a smirk. "Remember?"

"I know I'm barefoot, you ass," she retorted. "I tend to like being barefoot, thank you very much."

He shook his head. "Ain't ever understood how a woman with as much sense as you could always go around barefoot."

"I like the feel of the Earth between my toes." One dark brow lifted. "And what's my shoeless state got to do with anything, anyway?"

"Rattlers and walkers love bare toes is what it's got to do with things."

"Well, then, I guess you oughta make sure that no walkers or rattlers bite my bare toes, huh?"

He snorted a laugh. "Why've I gotta make sure that no walkers or rattlers bite your bare toes? You're the one walkin' around without any shoes on."

"'Cause you like my bare toes," she teased. "Especially," she added with a playful grin, "when I'm rubbing 'em up and down your bare legs."

"Shut up."

She let out a soft laugh before tucking her head beneath his chin. "So, if you weren't wantin' to try and go do some scoutin'," she said. "Then what is it you are sayin' you wanna give a try here? 'Cause I'm at a complete loss here about what you wanna try."

"Well, if you'd quit your caterwaulin'," he kidded her, "I'd actually be able to tell you."

She scoffed. "I ain't the one yappin' on about walkers trying to eat my bare toes here."

"You gonna hush up or keep runnin' that mouth of yours?" She huffed a sigh that tickled the hair by his chin but actually remained quiet. He took a few seconds to gather his thoughts before taking the bull by the horns and stuttering, "I wanna give us a try."

She was silent for all of three seconds. However, her reply wasn't the one that he expected. "A'ight," was all she said.

"A'ight?" he growled even as more laughter rolled across the sky. "That's all you gotta say?"

She leaned back to look at him. "Is there somethin' besides a'ight that you want me to say?"

"Something more than a'ight," he groused. "I just told you I wanna give us a try."

"I know you did," she said quietly. "But honey, we've always been us. We'll always be us. Ain't nothing, not even an apocalypse that is ever gonna change that."

"I ain't talking about us being what we were before, woman." He fixed her with a look. "I'm talkin' about us being a family type of us."

"Daryl, we've been a family type of us for more than three quarters of our lives."

"Yeah, but-"

"It's just how it was and we've always been comfortable with it being that way. It ain't changed." She reached up to lay a hand against his cheek. "Not for me."

"I know..." he began, but she continued talking right over him.

"However, I did promise someone that if'n I did manage to find your ornery ass before he did that I wasn't gonna let you waste the opportunity for us to make an honest go of things finally."

He angled his head to look at her. "Promised someone?" he asked slowly, cautiously. "Promised who?"

He counted the seconds in heartbeats. There were two before she said, "Merle." Her thumb stroked over his cheek. "I promised Merle, honey."

 


	8. Chapter 8

It was the sound of Carl saying, "Dad?" in a loud whisper that roused Rick out of the light dose he'd managed to fall into.

He came awake with a start, his hand instantly going for the knife he kept tucked beneath his pillow in case he needed to reach a weapon and fast. His fingers had just come into contact with the polished handle of his hunting knife when a voice in the back of his head whispered that the only danger he was in was being disowned for not answering his fourteen-year-old son. He withdrew his fingers from beneath his pillow and ran them over his face with a soft sigh.  _How long was I actually asleep_? he wondered groggily.  _Ten minutes? Twenty_? However long it was, it was nowhere near what his sleep-deprived mind and body needed.  _Or craved_.

He swallowed the groan creeping around in his mouth and forced his protesting eyes to open. The room was still awash in darkness so he knew that it was still night. Rain pounding upon the roof and wind slapping at the windows and rattling the doors told him that the storm which had blown in was still in full swing.  _Daryl said it was gonna be a helluva storm_. He felt his protesting lips creep up into something that might have been a smile. He took a few seconds to gather together his sleep-scattered wits before trying to articulate a reply that resembled something even remotely close to human speech. His first few tries came out as little more than grunts and gargles. Finally, after clearing his throat, he managed to say, "Yeah, Carl?"

The words still only came out as little more than an audible croak, but they'd suffice for the moment. Why Carl was even still awake, he didn't know. What he wanted to ask him, he couldn't say. There were plenty of things he could imagine Carl wanting to discuss with him, though. Things had been strained between them since before the incident at Terminus and only gotten more so when they had to abandon Alexandria. Part of the tension, he knew, was still stemming from what happened that night on the road with the Claimers. However, a large part of it was about what happened at Terminus and then afterwards in Alexandria. His son had seen a side of ugly that he wished he could erase with the simple press of a delete button. He couldn't do that, though. He couldn't magically wipe away any of the things that were inside Carl's mind. No more than he could erase any of the things inside his own head.

He was a grown man, however.

He had to constantly remind himself that Carl was fourteen going on forty. He was living in a world where it was necessary for children to be soldiers, to make decisions he wasn't mature enough to be making, to do things he wasn't grown enough to be doing. There was no way for him to know how to process everything, much less cope with the emotions and things that came with all those things. Hell, he was struggling with how to cope, how could he expect Carl to be able too?  _There are just things that he hasn't acquired the ability to understand and still needs me to explain to him._

Why his son always had to wait until the  _middle_  of the night to ask him about those things? Well, that he figured the kid had gotten from Lori.  _She liked waiting until I was almost asleep before wanting to talk, too._ The twinge of guilt and grief that came with the thought was almost a comforting familiar now, a constant that reminded him about how he was still alive and that this wasn't merely some nightmare his mind had concocted in order to deal with the trauma of being shot. It took every ounce of willpower he had to snap those greedy, grasping fingers trying to snatch at him and toss them away before they could pull him into the yawning abyss that patiently waited to consume him.  _Not yet, you son of a bitch_ , he told the skeletal figure constantly looming over him.  _You can't have me until I know that Judith and Carl will be okay, that they'll be safe_.

He was just beginning to fall back into the arms of sleep when he heard Carl shift around in his blankets, and sigh once before asking, "Why's Daryl acting so funny around Kat?" in a voice that was barely above a mumble.

Rick turned over onto his side so that he could look at his son. In the quick flash of light that busted through the cracks in the boards they'd nailed over the windows he could see that Carl's brow was puckered and his mouth screwed up into that thoughtful pucker he got whenever he was trying to puzzle something that made no sense to him out. That the great conundrum was about Daryl and the way he was acting around Kat came as little surprise to Rick. It was a change that he was still getting adjusted too, as well.

"Well, Carl," he said softly, "I reckon he's acting funny because he loves her."

Carl glanced over at him. "I've never seen him act this way about anyone but Judith."

"That's 'cause Kat's not just anyone else," he told him honestly. "She's someone from his before life that he had a relationship with and about whom he cares a great deal about."

"Glenn loves Maggie and doesn't act like Daryl has been."

"Well, that's because there's a difference between losing someone for a few days to losing them for a few years," Rick pointed out gently. "Daryl thought Kat was lost to him, that she was dead. Now she's suddenly come back into his life."

"So he's just afraid of losing her again."

"Yeah," Rick yawned. "He is."

_Very afraid_ , he added silently. Daryl didn't handle losing anybody close to him very well. It tended to mess with his head, complicating an already intricate amount of emotional pain and trauma. He usually responded to loss by shutting down, closing himself off until he could compartmentalize his pain and grief and release it in a surge of violence.

"I suppose it be like if we lost Judith again and couldn't find her for a long time," Carl said quietly. "We'd be just as overprotective and just as afraid of losing her again once we had her back."

It was as good a comparison as he could have come up with. "Yeah," he said numbly. "Yeah, it be like if we lost Judith again."

_God forbid_ , he added silently.

No sound, except for the grumble of the storm, filled the bedroom after that. Rick thought that Carl may have finally fallen asleep and was settling in to do just that for himself when he heard Carl murmur, "He's changed a lot, though, hasn't he?" A pause. "He's not the same person he was when he first joined the group. He's... grown-up."

Rick's lips curved at the irony of a teenager saying that a forty-year-old man had grown up. "I think it's more that Daryl has finally realized that he's free to be the man he wants to be. The one he's always been deep down, but couldn't be because circumstances required him to be a different sort of man at the time."

"His family is why he was the way he was in the beginning," Carl said as he folded his arms behind his head. "I don't think he'd be acting so goofy about Kat if Merle was still part of the group."

"Actually, Carl," Rick replied before stifling another yawn with his hand. "I think he would be acting exactly as he is even if Merle was still with us."

"Really?" There was as much surprise as confusion in Carl's voice. He felt more than saw his eyes— _Lori's_  eyes, peering at him through the darkness. "Why do you think he'd still be acting like this if Merle was around?"

"Well," he said slowly. "I think that what Daryl feels for Kat is strong enough that he'd ignore his brother and do what he thought was best for her."

"He left us for Merle, though."

"And returned when he realized that we were his family, too," he replied as another burst of light filled the room. "Never forget that, Carl. Never forget we're Daryl's family, too."

"I know," he heard Carl yawn. "I know we're his family, too."

Less than thirty seconds later he heard him snoring. He smiled into the darkness before joining Carl in slumber less than ten seconds later.

* * *

 

"Merle." Her thumb stroked over his cheek in a touch that managed to still the raging flood of emotions coursing through him. "I promised Merle, honey."

Daryl had had a feeling that was going to be the answer. Merle was the only person, other than Kat's own brothers, of course, that she'd ever make those kinds of promises too.

"When did you run into Merle?" he managed to ask around the lump that was stuck in his throat. "How long after we got separated?"

Her sigh tickled his throat. "I honestly don't know how long it was after we got separated." The admission came with another cool breath bloan across his over sensitive flesh. "I reckon Bo musta been about seven or eight months old when Merle happened upon us hidin' out in an old church."

_Seven or eight months_ , he thought, fingers curling in the back of her top.  _Shit, makes him a few months older than Little Ass Kicker_. By his calculations, Merle must have come across Kat about three or four months before they'd been reunited in that arena in Woodbury by the Governor. That his brother never mentioned having run into Kat didn't surprise him any. That was just Merle being Merle. He always waited for the right moment to drop bombshells on him. However, this was a jar dropper that his brother should have told him about before going off to confront the Governor on his own.

"Where exactly he happen upon you?"

"I don't rightly know where we were at that point in time," she told him in a voice that was barely above a monotone. "I sorta lost track once I saw how bad things were." She ran a hand over his back. "We were near Peachtree at one point, I think, but I skirted it."

"Why?"

"Figured big cities was where the walkers were gonna be congregated the most."

His lips twitched. "They was."

"Well, then, guess I was right in sticking to the smaller towns," she kidded. "Though I was just figuring it was what you two jack asses would be doing."

He retaliated to that by poking her in the side. "Smart ass."

"Better'n being a dumb ass like some people who shall remain nameless here," she retorted cheekily.

He snorted a laugh that was muted by a growl from above. It was quickly followed by more tendrils of light stretching towards the ground. Kat burrowed against him, muttering a few choice expletives that he recognized as being from his own rather colorful list. His lips twitched, but the smile that tried to form died when he again recalled how long she'd been on her own, fighting to keep what remained of her family together alive. There'd been nobody there to comfort her when shit went bad, when she was afraid, when she was just feeling lonely.  _She wouldn't have been dealin' with any of this bullshit on her own_ , he thought with a fresh surge of anger.  _Not if Merle's dumb ass would have told me where in the hell she was._

Just because he understood why his brother hadn't immediately told him about where Kat was didn't mean he wasn't still pissed off about it. Merle had done many dumb ass things in his life, but this just swallowed the bait. He reined in his temper, though, when another rumble started in the East and steadily grew louder as it rolled westwards.

"You're a'ight," he murmured as Kat shivered. "I got you."

Silently, though, his only thought was;  _how could you have left her out here, man? How could you make her shoulder the responsibility of caring for a sick woman and two kids on her own? You knew she needed help-that she needed me. Why didn't you tell me that you knew where she was so I could have gone and got her?_

Kat must have sensed his thoughts because she shifted in his arms and said, "He was lookin' for you, Daryl. Told me he had been lookin' for you ever since you 'n him got separated on the way to Atlanta. Said he knew the leader of the group you were running around with and that soon as he found him he'd find you."

"Yeah, that was-"

"Rick," she finished for him. "Yeah, I know." Her teeth winked at him. "I kinda figured out the connection after Rick introduced himself."

Shit, it seemed like more than two years had passed since he first met Rick and Glenn and Carol. Man, things had been rocky between them in the beginning. And all because... "Rick handcuffed Merle to some pipes and left him to rot."

"Daryl," she said as gently as she could. "We both know that Rick wouldn't have done that if'n Merle hadn't pushed him into doing it. Ain't the kinda man Rick is."

"Yeah, I know it now," he sighed. "I wanted to bust Rick in the mouth for leaving Merle like that then, though."

"There were two sides to your brother, honey. One that was as damaged as you by the shit your daddy did and that did bad things because it was expected of him. And then there was this other side that tried to do good things, but just didn't know how to do them."

"He weren't doing any good when he left your ass alone to care for Jo and two kids by yourself."

"He didn't leave me alone to take care of Jo and the kids," she replied in a soft voice. "He came whenever he could to check on us and brought supplies so that I didn't need to leave the kids alone with Jo."

He sniffed at that. "Still don't make it right. He-"

"…made my dumb ass grow up." She slowly ran her fingers over his back in a caress that was as soothing as it was stimulating. "He made me grow up, Daryl. Made me realize I wasn't gonna survive this mess if'n I didn't start using what you taught me."

"Still-" he began, but she continued speaking right over him.

"He also told me that I had to step up and be the head of the family 'cause there weren't nobody else there who was gonna do it. He was right about that, too. I had to get over my own bullshit because Jo and Bo and Jackson were countin' on me. They needed me to be strong, at my best."

"Yeah, well," he groused. "His ass still should have told me about where you were so I could have gone and gotten you."

"Ever stop to think that maybe  _why_  he didn't tell your ass about where I was stayin' was because he was makin' sure to protect me, Jo and the kids from whatever it was that was also stoppin' him from bringin' you to us?"

He went to refute that, to deny it, but something told him she wasn't wrong. There  _was_  a reason for why Merle had not told him about where Kat was. What that reason was, however, he'd never know. Not until he got to Hell and could ask his brother why directly.

"Maybe you're right," he grumbled finally. "Still don't make it right, though."

"Honey, he woulda come back and gotten us or told you where we were camped if he felt it was safe to do so. You know as well as I do that there weren't nothin' Merle wouldn't have done in order to keep your happy ass safe." He did know she was right. His brother had given his life in an attempt to keep him and the rest of the group safe. He wasn't ready to tell her about that, though. He wasn't ready to share his unthinkable with her. Not when hers was a raw wound that was still making them both bleed. "That he didn't tell you about where I was tells me that he knew that the group he fell in with after you two got separated would have come after us and either hurt us to get at him..." her voice trailed off into nothingness. Then she sighed and said, "Or to get at you in order to get at him." She leaned her head back to look at him. "He didn't trust the group he was with none," she told him quietly. "Said they were nothing but a buncha savages being led around by a rabid dog."

"The Governor." He heard the bitterness in his voice even as she did. He didn't apologize for it, nor did he elaborate upon why he felt as he did. She was smart enough to read between the lines. So he said, "That was what the psycho was calling himself. The Governor."

"Hm," she murmured. "I see." And Daryl had no doubt that she did. If there was one thing that Kat knew how to do, it was pick apart what he didn't say to figure out what it was that he was saying. "Well, honey, he never called him that during the time we were together." There was a speckle of humor in her voice now. "Prick, cocksucker and asshole were his three favorite adjectives to use whenever he was referring to him."

Each word sounded like one that his brother would use to describe the Governor. Despite his annoyance with his brother for having left Kat on her own for the last year, he still felt a trickle of amusement at his ability to describe someone through using as few words as necessary. He went to say something about Merle's descriptive choice of wording when a burst of light over the tops of the trees at the edge of the property highlighted a handful of figures shuffling their way up the road. He counted ten, but knew the numbers could triple easily. The shift into hunter mode was instant and so seamless that he hardly recognized the switch.

"Go wake Rick and the others," he ordered Kat as he reached for his crossbow. "We got trouble."

"What?" She turned her head, searching the darkness for whatever it was that he saw. "Daryl, are you-"

"Got walkers coming up the road," he growled. Another crack of lightning pierced the sky and illuminated the shapes that the trees had obscured. He readied a bolt. "Go on now," he snapped. "Get Rick and the others up."

For the second time in one day, Katherine Mason did exactly what he told her too.

 


	9. Chapter 9

Rick knew he was dreaming when he found himself riding along a familiar stretch of road in the middle of the daytime. His brain tingled and a shiver danced along his spine as he looked around. He remembered this road. It was one of the dozens he had traveled after he left Morgan and his son to go in search of Lori and Carl. Ahead of him, a graveyard of cars formed an obstacle course he had to navigate his way through—both by guiding himself and the chestnut horse he had borrowed from the farmhouse just a few miles back safely through the twists and turns, and by keeping a close eye out for anything that might try to attack them. Danger lurked everywhere. The trees on either side of the road barely moved in the gentle breeze that wafted across his clammy face.

Sunlight pierced the shadows cast by the trees to reveal blurry smears of shape and shadow and sound that pushed his already frayed nerves even more closer to the edge. The recognizable scents of sweet shrubs and wildflowers mixed with that of earth and smoke to tickle his nose, making him think of those hot summer nights when they'd grill steaks and burgers in the backyard. Those welcome smells were covered up a second later by the unmistakable scent of death. Its acrid stench slapped away the good memories and filled his lungs with its hateful reminder of everything this world had lost and would never have again. He could see jagged hills rising up over the top of the trees, their rocky plateaus golden in the light that washed over them. Sparse patches of grass and shrubs spread over the terraces of those serrated cliffs and bluffs. The sound of his mount's bridle jingled as he continued making his way down the road.

This was a scene he'd lived through a hundred times since it had happened. It was a memory he loathed with every fiber of his being. He knew what awaited him at the end of the road. It was that abandoned gas station. That gas station where, amongst a sea of even more forgotten cars and things that had once been alive, he'd learned the first of the hard lessons that this new world had been damned set upon teaching him. Rick felt his heart pound with trepidation, his stomach churn with a slimy mixture of dread and disgust, and his blood chill in his veins. Damnit, no. He didn't want to go there again. He didn't want to relive that moment, that scene, that situation. He had done what he had done because he had no choice, no other option, no other way. He tried to turn the horse, to pick a different path, to change the direction of the dream, but vapory hands took hold of that bridle and led the horse to the place he did not want to go.

He knew what he'd have to do once he reached the end of this long stretch of road.

It was the same thing he had to do whenever he came to the end of this road.

Thunder rumbled in the distance and he glanced behind him to see black clouds slowly swallowing the blue sky in its gargantuan mouth. A frown furrowed his brow as he watched lightning rip the sky with its fury. This was not part of his memory. It was not part of the scene that he'd been through so many times before. It was a divergence he didn't understand, hadn't expected, and which he suspected was going to change him when all was said and done. The rain came a few minutes later, pouring from the fractured sky in fiery rivulets that steamed as it hit the parched ground. Even the air itself burned with the fury of the storm. He pulled the brim of his hat- the one he'd given Carl, he dimly recalled- lower in order to shield his eyes from the burning onslaught.

Beneath him, his mount snorted and shook its head, clearly unhappy with being out in a storm like this. There was no other choice but to go on. He had to follow the road as it took him to where it was that it wanted him to go. Onwards he rode, every mile adding to the nausea twisting around in his belly like worms. A few miles up the way he came across a woman in the middle of the road. Her white dress stood out amidst the swirling chaos of the storm. Rick thought it a sign. One that said he wouldn't have to relive his unthinkable, not this time. Hope blossomed, spread warmth throughout his cold body. The woman started rocking back and forth, hugging herself with supple arms and making low, guttural sounds that stabbed at him, that stole his momentary relief and left him empty. A new horror started to rise, to taunt him, to warn him that he shouldn't have become so complacent. Even as every instinct screamed at him to keep going, to ride on, to ignore her, but something compelled him to tug on the reins and bring his mount to a stop.

"Miss? I'm a policeman. Miss? Don't be afraid. Okay? Miss?" The words were the same ones he had spoken to that little girl he'd met in that gas station. He shook off the sense of déjà vu and spoke again. "Miss? Can I help you with something? I'm a policeman. Miss?" he repeated. "Do you hear me? I'm a policeman. Can I help you with something?"

The woman thankfully stopped making those inarticulate sounds, but she did not turn to look at him. Rick dreaded the moment when she would. A part of him, the part that had survived this nightmare knew what he'd see when she turned to look at him: torn and rotting flesh, empty and soulless eyes, a mouth that could form nothing but the haunting moans of the damned. The other part of him, the one who still hadn't fully managed to process just how fucked up this world was, clung to the belief that he could do something still to save the woman from such a cruel existence.

"Miss?" he repeated for the umpteenth time. "Can you hear me? Don't be afraid. Okay? I'm a policeman. I'm here to help."

"You can't help me," he heard her reply in a familiar voice. "You can't help me."

Even as every instinct screamed at him to kick his mount in the side and ride like hell for that gas station and the familiar guilt that always awaited him there, he swung his leg over the horse's back and slid to the ground. The mud sucked at his boots in much the same way that the world siphoned the humanity from his very bones. He slowly, cautiously approached the shaking woman, his hand on the butt of his gun and his every muscle taut with expectation.

"Miss?" he said in that tempered tone he'd cultivated in order to be the best police officer he could be. "Will you at least tell me what's wrong?"

She shook her head back and forth in a succession of short, jerky movements that sent honeyed tendrils of hair swirling around her face. "You can't help me," she repeated again. "So go away."

"I'm a police officer-"

"I said go away," she rasped. "Now go on," she ordered. "Git."

Then she bowed her head, taking short, gasping breaths that made his eyes and throat burn with. He couldn't take it. He just couldn't stand there and do...  _nothing_. He just  _couldn't_. It wasn't the sort of man that he was before all this shit went down and it wasn't the sort of man that he thought himself to still be in the here and now.

"Miss, please let me help," he pleaded with her now. "Please. I'm a police officer."

"I told you." She didn't growl it. No, the woman just sounded absolutely broken. "You can't help me."

"Yes-"

"No, Rick, you can't."

Rick felt his world tilt as eyes the color of smoke slowly lifted to his. Rain, coupled with the tears that streamed down her face, had streaked a path through the blood and bits of gore coating her pale face. A pain he knew went soul deep flashed for just a moment through those eyes before being swallowed behind a mask she'd been wearing nearly all her life. Seeing her like this hurt him in a way that no bullet or knife ever could. Physical injuries healed themselves with time. It was the emotional ones that he knew never went away.

"Kat-"

"You can't help me," she warbled in a voice that just sounded  _off_. "You can't save me, Rick."

He didn't know he'd knelt beside her until he was eye-level with her. "Yes, I can," he told her in that gentle voice he used to soothe Judith. "I can help you, Kat. I can save you."

Her mouth shivered and she lifted a grimy hand to his face. "You weren't able to save Lori," she barely managed to whisper. "Or any of the others."

How she knew about Lori, Hershel, Tyreese, Beth, he didn't know.

"I-"

"You couldn't save Carl," she continued in that same breathless voice. "Or Judith."

"No," he denied with a shake of his head. "No, they're alive! My children are alive! They're okay!"

"You killed them, Rick," she wheezed. "You killed them both."

"No!" he shouted at her. "No, I didn't! I couldn't!" He grabbed her shoulders and shook her once, hard. "Goddamn it, I wouldn't kill them!"

"You killed them all." It was like she didn't even hear him. She just kept ticking names off, one right after the other. "Maggie, Glenn, Carol, Morgan, Michonne." Her voice was a moist hiss. "Bo, Jackson, Daryl..."

"No..." he moaned. "No no no no..."

"Rick," he heard her sigh. "You..." her head tipped forward, landing upon his shoulder. "You…" Her body relaxed against his. "Help."

"Kat?" Instantly alarmed, Rick placed a bracing arm around her. "Kat? What is it? What's wrong?"

She murmured something that he couldn't quite make out. He thought she said, "... cold," but couldn't tell around the chattering of her teeth.

"Shh, don't talk." He reached up to brush her hair from her face in an attempt to soothe her, but froze when his fingers encountered a sticky wetness that wasn't caused by the rain pouring down upon them. "What the...?"

He carefully lifted the tangled mass and choked on a gasp when he saw the gaping hole in the side of her neck. Blood was pouring from the wound, warm and gooey as melted chocolate as it slid down the front of her throat and over his fingers to stain the front of her dress pink.

"Kat!" he shouted. He cradled her in one arm, helpless to do much more than watch as the wet spread, staining the milky white material that was rapidly becoming darker and darker crimson. "Oh, God," he croaked. "Oh, God, Kat..."

"...cold," she mouthed. "So cold."

"Hold on," he told her, covering the wound with his hand in a paltry attempt to keep her from losing anymore of her life's blood. He could feel her pulse against his fingertips. It was faint. She was fading, he realized, and fast.

"Hold on, Kat. I'll get you to help."

"...too late, Rick," her breathing was strained. "End... me."

"No." Tears blurred his vision, stuck in his throat. The fear mixed with the grief in his heart. "No, I can't. I can't-"

"Don't..." She shuddered in his arms, once. "...me turn."

"Kat, hold on," he begged. "Please."

But it was too late. Rick knew it by the hoarse clattering of her breath, and by the way she went limp in his arms. He thought he heard her breathe one last word. "Please..."

Then she was gone.

And he could do nothing more than stare down at the lifeless body he held in his arms. "Kat," he whispered. "Kat..."

Too late. He was too damned late. He was always too fucking late. He laid Kat gently on the ground, not able to stare at the face of yet another person that he'd failed to protect. He wiped a hand that shook like an alcoholics over his face, knowing what he had to do and hating himself even more because of it. He'd do it because it was her final request, because it was the honorable thing to do, because it was the only damn thing he could do. But it didn't mean he wanted too. Relying solely on instinct, he fumbled for the Colt revolver strapped to his hip, wresting it free even as he swallowed the bile that surged into his throat. He raised the revolver as the thunder laughed at him, called him every sort of fool for believing that he'd be able to save anybody.

"I'm sorry," he murmured as he cocked the hammer. "I'm so sorry."

He squeezed the trigger...

...

"Rick, come on, honey. Wake up. You're havin' a bad dream."

He opened his eyes to the cannon-blast of thunder and the jagged rip of lightning tearing through the darkness. He woke to terror, and trembling still with lingering grief and sadness. It took a moment for his vision to clear enough for him to make out how he was back in his bedroom inside the farmhouse.

"Rick-"

"I couldn't stop it," he whispered in a voice he didn't recognize as his own. "I could-"

"Hush now," he heard Kat say in that smoky tone he remembered from his dream. "It's over. It's done."

"I couldn't make it stop. I couldn't save you. I couldn't save any of you."

"Shh." Her breath whispered over his face and chilled his sweat-soaked flesh. "It's all over now, honey. You're a'ight."

He stared up at her, felt his blood pump when she loomed over him. The hand she placed against his cheek made his skin bubble and boil. The tickle of her long hair brushing across his chest made him think of a shroud being draped over him. The lingering scent of death chased away the sweeter one of rain mixed with some rich, spicy scent that made him think of how his childhood home smelled at Christmas. Another bark of thunder shattered the quiet and was followed by another quick burst of light. Over it, he heard her breath rattling in her chest. He sprang up with a hoarse, "No!" that caught both Carl and Kat by surprise.

"Rick!" he heard Kat cry. "Come on now, honey, you gotta settle down."

He reached for her, only able to see the gaping hole in her throat and the blood flowing from it. "No!" he shouted as he circled her throat with his hand. "Goddamn it! No!"

He dimly heard Carl's alarmed, "Dad!"

"Go, Carl!" He shouted as he twisted to grab for the revolver he'd left on the makeshift nightstand. "Get Judith and get out of here!"

The gun was snatched out of his reach by Carl who stared at him with eyes that were nearly as wide as saucers. He went to demand that he hand the weapon to him, but Carl asking, "Dad? Are you okay?" in a tremulous voice stopped him.

"What?" he asked, voice shivering with his fear and confusion. "Carl?"

"Let Kat go," Carl ordered. "Dad, let her go."

"I can't," he replied. "She's hurt. You need to go get Dar-"

"She's not hurt," his son told him in a quietly subdued voice. "Dad, she's not hurt."

He frowned and stared again at Kat. Sure enough there was no blood dripping down her throat from a wound the size of his fist. "But I saw the hole in her throat…"

"There's no hole in her throat."

"Yeah, there-"

"That was part of your dream, honey," he felt more than heard Kat. "Carl's right, I ain't hurt."

Rick was silent as he tried to puzzle out what was real and what were the elements of his dream. He was no longer certain which was which. He stared at his son while he worked to clear away the vestiges of bullshit still swirling around inside his head. He tried to bottle the things that his nightmare had awoken inside him, but found he was able to do nothing more than draw a shaky breath.

"Carl-"

"I said let her go, dad."

"It's okay, Carl," he heard Kat assure him. "He ain't hurtin' me none."

"But-"

"Your daddy's had a nightmare," she told him without taking her eyes off Rick. "And right now it has got him a lil bit confused." She set a hand over Rick's before saying to Carl, "You go on and take Judith into mine and Daryl's bedroom, a'ight? I'll take care of your daddy."

"I don't-"

"Go on now, Carl," she ordered in a voice like melted butter. "You go take care of my boys and your baby sister while I help your daddy."

"All right," Carl said in a tone that said he wasn't quite convinced that he should leave her alone with him. That his son was worried that he'd somehow harm Kat slapped the fog from his mind. He pulled his hand away from Kat's throat with a soft curse.

"It's okay, Carl," he managed to say around the lump of shame and guilt crawling around in his throat. "Go on and do what Kat said."

Carl picked up Judith who'd remained silent throughout the entire exchange and walked to the door without another word. He glanced back at them once from the doorway, clearly uncertain, before finally disappearing into the dark hallway.

"Kat," he said once Carl was gone. "Kat, I'm sor-"

"Rick, it's a'ight." She set a hand, warm and comforting, upon his shoulder. "It's a'ight, honey," she said again. "There's no harm done."

"Still," he began but she cut him off with a shake of her head.

"It was the dream." She squeezed his shoulder. "It unsettled you is all."

It was still unsettling him. He fell silent as he worked to regain control over his rampaging thoughts and emotions. Finally, when he felt more at ease, he said, "Kat?"

"Yeah?" she replied in a voice as gentle as a summer evening breeze. "I'm still here, honey."

He wiped a still unsteady hand across his face. "Are you okay?"

"I'm still standin'," he heard her reply. "Well, I'm currently sittin', but you get my drift." She slid her hand down his arm, taking his. "You want some water?"

What he wanted was a bottle of whiskey.

"No. Just... no."

Another long rumble echoed from outside, rattling the ceiling and the doors. Again he felt that gooey wetness slide over his hands. Again he heard her final breath rattle. Again he felt her body go limp in his arms. Again he smelled that sickly sweet smell of death.  _Again again again_... Rick heard a low, almost animalistic moan sound and was surprised to discover it came from him. He felt his world shifting; crumbling. He clamped down upon Kat's fingers in a grip that he knew was bone-crushing in order to cement himself in the here and now. Kat never once uttered a word of complaint or asked him to loosen up his grip any. She merely smoothed her thumb over his pulsating knuckles in an attempt to still the storm raging inside him.

"Wanna talk about it?" she asked gently.

Talking about it was the last thing he wanted to do. He didn't even know where to begin talking about it. How the hell was he supposed to tell her that she died in his arms after requesting he put a bullet in her brain?

"Was just a nightmare," he replied stiffly.

"Sounds like it was a helluva nightmare."

"Yeah." He swallowed back the bile burning at the back of his throat. "Yeah, it was."

She wrapped her other hand around the two intertwined in her lap. "My brother, Boone used to have nightmares like you just did," she told him quietly. "Storms or cars backfiring tended to cause 'em. Probably," she said on one long, weary breath, "'cause they reminded him of the gunfire and other shit he heard while he was serving overseas."

"Your brother was in the military?"

"He was a Ranger." There was a modicum of pride that shimmered in that velvety tone and told Rick more than anything about how much she had loved and respected her brother. "Made our daddy right proud when he joined up. Hell, it made all of us proud."

"He was stationed at Fort Benning?"

"Until he was deployed to Fallujah," she said with another nod. "Came home from his first deployment just a little bit messed up. Understandable considerin' what all he was doin' over there and how he was fightin' human beings."

"Taking a life is never an easy decision."

"And it shouldn't be." She turned her head towards him. "Taking a life shouldn't ever be an easy decision. And we should grieve for it, for that person." Rick couldn't do anything more than nod. It was enough for Kat who went on to say, "Boone managed to do that his first time. He grieved for the people he killed, the friends and comrades he lost. He signed up for a second tour despite our urgin' him not to do so."

"He went a second time?"

"And got stationed somewhere where the fighting was even heavier. He came home a changed man after that deployment. Post-Traumatic Stress the doctors called it. Any little thing could cause him to snap."

"He would snap over any little thing?"

"Hell, Rick," she sighed, "Boone would sometimes would snap over the littlest of things. It was like living with Mr. Hyde sometimes. One little thing and he could lash out. And that weren't Boone," she told him quietly. "It weren't Boone at all."

"How did you handle it?"

She shook her head. "Didn't handle it."

Rick's eyebrows shot upwards at that.

"What do you mean you didn't handle it?" That didn't sound like her. "You just let him go off?"

"No, I didn't just let him go off."

"Then what?"

"Who you think stepped in whenever Boone got a lil crazy and started swingin' his fists at me, Rick?" There was an edge now to her voice. "It was Daryl who stepped in whenever Boone got like that. Took the worst of shit 'cause that's just who he is."

"He was trying to protect you."

She looked away. "Yeah, honey, I know. His ass been protectin' mine all of our lives. That's who Daryl Dixon is. Though he won't admit it. Man's stubborn as a mule."

"Pot. Kettle. Black."

Kat sniffed. "Anyway, Daryl would confront Boone whenever he got that crazy. Usually took a pretty good beatin' for it. Boone was always sorry afterwards and would do his damndest to make amends for what he done. For a time, we thought he was getting better. The outbursts slowed down, started comin' more infrequently. But then..."

"But then?" Even as he asked, Rick suspected he knew the answer. How many times had he picked up the paper and seen a headline about military or police personnel who had either murdered their families, or themselves? He suspected, however, that this was something she had never talked with anybody, save for Daryl, about. "What happened then, Kat?"

"The world went to hell, Rick," she said after a few moments of silence. "That's what happened. The whole goddamn world went to hell."

 


	10. Chapter 10

On the outside, her words sounded cool, calm, and collected. Almost as if she was doing nothing more than reciting some beloved passage from the Good Book. Ah, but on the inside was a whole other matter. Internally, Kat was an amalgam of emotions. A sea of guilt, a never-ending wave of grief, a well of bitter anger, every one of the fears she kept buried down deep intermingled with pain until they were spinning around on a volcanic needle of memories. Each reminder of the people she had lost twisted her into an even more tightly bunched coil of tension. She hadn't managed to simmer down following the traumatic events of the day when the dead-but-not-dead horde decided to show up unannounced and uninvited. She felt... too much. Any minute she expected to explode from the pressure. However, the game of pool currently being played in her belly was nothing compared to the concert going on inside her head. Every ball sunk into some empty pocket caused a bright bite of pain. Bile foamed into her mouth, hot and vile tasting, but was swallowed back. She didn't have time to wallow in her own bullshit.

Not when Rick needed her.

Kat had known what she was dealing with the instant she crept into the bedroom. Boone had had similar nightmares after he'd returned from his first trip overseas, many about a friend of his who'd gotten shot while they were on patrol and who died in his arms. Those sorts of nightmares she could handle. She could talk Rick through that sorta shit. She could get him to see that that was all it was. It was the waking memories that she knew were the absolute hardest to combat. Boone would be seemingly lost in whatever it was he was seeing in the past while walking and talking to them in the present. At first, they'd all thought it was the lingering effects of Boone having lived in a combat zone for close to two years. They hadn't realized- _or maybe it was just that we didn't want to admit or accept_ , she acknowledged silently, _just how messed up Boone actually was_. Boone had weathered so much of the other bullshit that happened in his life that they hadn't imagined his time in the army would tear him apart as it had. A sea of images from the night when Boone had finally snapped and they'd had no choice but to accept the truth, spun across her visual field, causing her belly to roll over in thick, greasy waves.

_If not for Merle managin' to get the drop on him, I dunno what woulda happened that night_ , she thought as she swallowed back another surge of bile. What Boone had gone through that night went above and beyond a simple nightmare. He'd seen all of them, even his five-year-old son David, as insurgents and responded in the manner in which he'd been trained to deal with those he perceived to be his enemies: by putting them down. No matter how much they'd pleaded, no matter what all they'd tried in order to get through the haze surrounding him, they just hadn't been able to shake him free of the memory holding him in its maniacal grip. If Merle hadn't been driving by, if he hadn't stopped, if he hadn't knocked her brother out when he did, if he hadn't gotten that gun away from him when he had, Boone might have shot her, Jo, his wife Eileen, his kids, Daryl and only God knew who else before finally turning the gun upon himself. It was a scene many families of a police officer, firefighter or military serviceman or woman had gone through prior to the world going to shit.

Not that she needed to tell Rick any of that.

No, Rick already knew, and probably better than she did, about post-traumatic stress disorder. If this world they were living in wasn't enough to teach him about it, well, she was sure that his years as a police officer had taught him enough. One could only see so much bullshit before it finally took a toll upon their mental health. He likely had read many of the newspaper articles and seen many of the news reports about service men and women who ended up killing their family and themselves during a blackout. He knew the criterion for the disorder, what it looked it when it manifested, maybe even internally acknowledged that he was suffering from the disease. Who the hell wasn't afflicted? They'd all seen things that nobody ever should. They'd all done things of which they weren't proud and which would haunt them for however long the rest of their lives were. It was just one more thing that the survivors of this new world got to share in common.

However, just because Rick knew about PTSD didn't mean that he wasn't bugged as hell about it. He was. She could tell by the subtle ways he was moving his body, the nervous switch in his fingers that he didn't like his secret being known.  _Well, tough_ , she told him silently. It wasn't like he was the first man to wake screamin' in the night from the shit doing a two-step inside his head. Hell, he wasn't going to be the last for that matter. Way she saw it? Wherever there was bullshit like death and disease? There were gonna be nightmares. It was just another present given to them by this wonderful world in which they lived.

"Rick-" she said at the same time he said, "Kat."

They both stopped, staring at each other in amused surprise. Then they both breathed out one soft, embarrassed, "ha," that got smothered by an angry roar from the sky. Kat shuddered as the roof and walls vibrated with the force of the storm. Silently, she prayed the inhospitable weather would stop the walkers creeping around outside the house. If there wasn't any threat to contend with, well, then the members of this little group could remain safely inside.  _Where we all belong_.

"What is it?" Rick asked in that tone that was soft as a marshmallow on the outside, but which was hard as an almond on the inside. "Hear something?"

"I ain't a real big fan of thunderstorms," she admitted with a small, rueful smile. "Ain't liked 'em since I was little."

"A lot of kids don't like thunderstorms." His tone was sympathetic and kind. "Carl didn't like them when he was younger. It's a normal fear."

_Normal fears_ , she thought as another bright bolt of light filled the room.  _Who thought such a thing was even possible given the abnormal hellhole we livin' in_?

"What about Little Ass Kicker?" she lightly questioned as another rumble shook the shingles on the roof. "She afraid of storms? Or is she livin' up to that nickname Rambo went and hung on her?"

Rick made a soft sound of amusement, but whatever he might have said was muted by the wind slapping the glass against the wood panels blocking it from entering the house.

"Judith hasn't shown a fear of them," he said once things got quiet. "Well, she hasn't shown a fear of them, yet," he added with a quick smile. "That could change as she gets older."

"Bo ain't afraid of storms. Neither is Jackson, thankfully." More lightning flashed. "Good thing, too," she managed to say without shrieking. "I'm a big enough baby about 'em for all three of us."

"It's okay to be scared."

"Hell, I know it's okay to be scared," she said as cheekily as she could. "But I don't just get scared whenever there's a thunderstorm."

"Oh?" He glanced at her. "And what do you get?"

"I tend to get squirrely whenever there's a storm like this. Even regular ole everyday thunderstorms make me wanna hide underneath my bed."

"And here you live on the side of the country that is plagued by them," he teased. "I'm thinking you should have moved somewhere that didn't get storms like this often."

"I know," she sighed in dramatic fashion. "I kept tellin' Rambo how we needed to pack up and move the hell out to California or somethin'. But you know how pigheaded that jackass is."

That made Rick laugh. Not one of those rusty sounding laughs that hurt to hear because it wasn't really a laugh, but an honest to goodness one that came from deep in the belly. Hearing it soothed her frazzled nerves and filled her with a familiar warmth she'd thought lost years ago.  _It's a real kick in the ass_ , she thought as rain slammed against the side of the house,  _when you realize how unpredictable this stinkin' world of ours actually is_.

"I think," she said quietly; slowly. "I think I finally get why it is that I find myself trustin' you so easily, Rick."

His teeth shone for a brief moment in the dark. "It's because of my handsome face, right?"

She snorted a laugh. "You wish."

"My Southern charm?"

"'Fraid not, honey." She smirked. "I happen to like my men belligerent, surly and sarcastic."

He chuckled. "Carl would say you just haven't seen me at my finest."

"I'm thinkin' I saw you at your finest earlier today."

"Kat-"

"I'm also thinkin'," she continued right over him. "That the man in front of me right now is an honorable and decent one who took on my nightmares despite havin' more'n enough of his own to deal with. I like that man." She paused; smiled. "I respect that man."

"That's it," he tried to joke, but the wealth of emotions in his voice stole the lightheartedness he intended. "I'm telling Daryl you're leaving him for me."

"Go ahead and tell him," she teased back. "See what happens."

"No, thank you." He rubbed his jaw. "I have already been punched once by him. That was more than enough."

"Hell, honey, that was just a love tap."

Rick chuckled. "It didn't hurt like one."

"Rick, you done got off lucky. Anybody else left his brother cuffed to some pipe would still be lookin' for his teeth."

"Anyway," he said on a long, drawn out breath. "Why is it that you find yourself trusting me so easily?"

She flashed a saucy grin at him. "Didn't I answer that when I said I liked you?"

"No," he whined. "You gave me false hope when you said you liked me."

She snorted a laugh at that. "Right." Then she winked at him. "Course, I ain't ever been fought over..."

"Well, if that's the only way," he sighed. "Guess I will have to fight him for you then."

"My money's on Rambo."

"Your vote of confidence in my ability to lose is very much appreciated," he drawled.

"Hey," she said cheekily. "What're friends for?"

"If that's being friendly, I hate to see what you're like as an enemy."

"I'm cuddly as a polecat."

"With rabies."

She laughed. "See, that's why I trust you," she told him once she quieted down. "Right there you remind me so much of Boone. And of Daryl. Though," she added with a smile, "you are a little easier to deal with than Rambo is."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, all three of you are the most hardest-headed, toughest and opinionated sons of bitches I've ever met," she began. "But-"

"Tend to recall that you're the pot," he inserted in a tone as dry as sand. "So I'd mind who I was calling stubborn here. People in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones."

"Hell, you've met the damned kettle," she retorted with a sniff. "You can see why I've have to become so damn obstinate."

"I'm thinking that you come by your pigheadedness naturally."

Her lips twitched. "Reckon you might be right about that," she admitted. "Daddy did used to say that movin' a mountain would be easier than gettin' me to change my mind about somethin' I'm plumb set on doing."

"Now you sound like Daryl."

"Tell him that," she joked. "It always makes his-"

A gun firing halted the rest of what Kat was about to say. Her head whipped around so fast to glance at the boarded up window that she knocked the small hair clip she'd used to secure her tawny hair askew. Silky strands went flying every which way as she tried to detect the direction from which that shot had been fired.  _Rear of the house_? she wondered.  _Or the side_? She couldn't be sure since the storm was taking any auxiliary sounds and throwing them every which way. Rick also went instantly on alert when he heard that shot and immediately reached for his gun, only to recall when his fingers didn't encounter the cool feel of well-worn leather that Carl had taken the weapon with him when he left the room. He let out a few choice expletives before fixing her with a burning, blistering stare that might have made her squirm had he been Daryl. As it was, Kat merely sniffed and fixed him with a look that spelled out  _do something_...

"Goddamn it," he grumbled at her. "Why didn't you say that there was shit going on when you came in?" He stopped, seemed to consider something and then let out a string of even more colorful four-letter words. "That's why you came in, isn't it? It was to wake me up and tell me about what was going on."

"Yup," she confirmed with a nod. "It was."

"Why didn't you?"

"'Cause what I found was going on in here was much more important to me than what was going on out there." Rick let out a few more select words, one of which was "mullish" and the other "woman" before making to get up. Kat detained him by setting her hand on his shoulder. "Daryl and the others will handle what's going on out there," she told him, using the same firm tone she'd used on Carl. "You're to worry about you at the moment."

"You like telling me what to do, don't you?" he half-grumped, half-teased.

"Reckon it's fair since Rambo's always tellin' my ass what to do."

"And you obey so beautifully."

Kat sighed. "See, there you go thinkin' like him about how my agreeing with the hard-headed ass is me obeyin' him or somethin'. It ain't. It's just me being practical and seein' he's right."

"Apples to oranges," he pointed out with a grin. "They're both fruit and you are still obeying when you're agreeing."

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered crossly. "Just don't go and tell him that that is what I'm doin'." She huffed a sigh. "Ain't no livin' with him as it is. Who knows what all he'd order me to do if he knew I would actually obey him."

"He'd order you to come in and wake me because he'd suspect that I'm having a nightmare."

_Daryl couldn't know that Rick was gonna have a nightmare tonight_...  _right_? Kat thought, her brow puckering.  _It be impossible to guess unless..._

She swore, foully.

"Man is sneakier than a fox in a henhouse, I swear," she grumbled.

...

As soon as he heard the sound of the gun being discharged, Carl jumped up, every nerve primed and ready for action. Every thought emptied from his head but for the primal instinct to do whatever was necessary to ensure his and everyone else's survival. The first thing he needed to do, he realized, was go and give his dad back his gun.  _He'll need it just in case something gets inside the house_. He was about to head to the door when he felt a slight tug on his shirt. He glanced down at the small boy who'd been seated beside him on the floor in front of the makeshift bed and saw he'd also jumped to his feet when the shot sounded. In the semi-darkness, Jackson's eyes were these huge white baseballs brimming with worry and fear. He took a moment to reassure the younger boy.

"It's gonna be okay," he promised him in a hushed tone. "My dad, Daryl, Glenn, and the others will make sure that the walkers can't get inside." He waited until Jackson nodded to signify he understood before saying, "Stay here, okay? I'm just gonna go and-"

Jackson let out a small, distressed sound and clutched at his arm with fingers that made Carl think of the talons on a small hawk or falcon.

"What is it?" he asked him, instantly alarmed. "Do you hear something?"

Jackson's response was a quick shake of his head.

"No?" Carl frowned his confusion. "Then what is it?"

Jackson flashed his fingers in some sort of sign language, but Carl didn't understand what the signs he was making even meant. They were finger signs that he'd seen Bradley Johnson and Molly Tucker make. To them they formed some sort of language. To him, however, they just looked like weird finger shapes.

"I'm sorry," he told the silent boy, "but I don't know what you are trying to tell me." Jackson repeated the signs, moving his fingers in a slower motion to try and convey exactly what it was that he was signing. It still made no sense, though, and he told him that. "I don't understand what the signs you are making mean," he said apologetically. "I don't know sign language."

He didn't even attempt to point out about how things would go so much easier communication wise if he'd just say whatever it was that he wanted to say. He instinctively realized there was a reason behind why Jackson didn't verbally speak.  _And when he's ready to tell me why it is that he don't speak_ , he thought, watching as that dark brow puckered into a thoughtful frown.  _He will_. It wasn't like he was going to force him. Carl had seen firsthand about what forcing someone who was traumatized could lead to. A second later Jackson's face brightened and he grabbed Carl's hand and slowly wrote in his palm.

"Kat?" Carl said. Jackson grinned and nodded rapidly. He pointed at his palm and then over to where Bo and Judith were quietly playing with their blocks. Carl just shook his head, not getting what connection that Jackson was trying to make between the infants and Kat. "I'm not getting what you are saying again," he told him. "What are you trying to tell me about Kat and Bo and Judith?"

Jackson pointed at his palm and then over at the infants once more. Carl was about to repeat his earlier statement about not understanding when his tiny face slid into that intense expression that his dad tended to get whenever he told him to take care of Judith. That's it, he realized. That's what he's trying to tell me. He looked at him. "Are you saying that Kat told us to take care of Judith and Bo and that I should stay here?"

Jackson flashed another toothy grin and nodded.

"I'm not gonna go far," Carl told him. "Just gonna give my dad back his gun is all."

"You don't gotta give me my gun back, Carl," he heard his father say quietly. He turned to see his father framed in the doorway. Jackson let out a small sound of distress at seeing him, but quieted when he saw Kat was a few steps behind him.

"You don't want your gun?" he asked his father curiously. "Why?"

"I've been ordered to take care of Judith and Bo."

His eyebrows shot up hearing that. "You've been ordered?" He didn't think there were many people, outside Daryl and maybe Michonne who'd dare order his father around. Not without catching hell for it. "You were ordered to take care of Judith and Bo?" he asked again. "You?"

"Yes," his father confirmed as he walked over to where the toddlers were playing. "Me."

"Who ordered you?"

_And how did they get away with it_? he wondered.

"Kat." His father cast an amused look over his shoulder at the woman with her hand on Jackson's shoulder. "She enjoys telling me what to do."

"Only 'cause you're so good about obeyin', honey."

"Don't press your luck."

There was something, some sort of secret that only his father and Kat shared underlying their teasing banter. What that secret was, Carl didn't have a clue. He didn't think he was ever going to understand the way that the adult mind worked, though.  _No more than adults will ever understand the way that the minds of us kids work_ , he thought as the world outside barked one long, sinister laugh.

 


	11. Chapter 11

When he heard the front door creak open a short time later, Daryl fully expected that it was going to be Kat coming back out to join him. For a moment, he found himself mildly amused and rather pleased that she would dare to contravene his silent order for her to go inside the house and stay there. That he even managed to get her to go inside, and gotten her to stay there for as long as she had, surprised him more than her coming back out did. The woman could be quite contrary when she set her mind to be. However, if there was one thing he knew about Kat, it was that she couldn't turn her back on someone in need. She hated seeing anything, or anyone, in pain. Soon as the storm broke he had suspected Rick would have another nightmare.

So he manipulated Kat into going inside to get him, knowing she would remain indoors to help talk him through whatever shit in his head. Sure, it was underhanded and dirty. He wasn't a damn bit sorry about having done it. Her ass was needed inside, and that was where he had sent her to be.  _Damn, stubborn woman_ , he groused silently.  _Why you always gotta be so pigheaded about shit_? Not that he didn't understand why Kat was the way she was. Shit, he didn't need to be hit over the head with a frying pan in order to see how being a mule-headed pain in the ass was how Kat had managed to survive all this time. Her obstinate nature, her love and loyalty to her family and her unwavering belief that he would find them were all that had kept her going. Just because he understood the mule didn't mean he wasn't going to try and make her see how she needed to stand down, to back away, to let him handle the gooks lurking at the end of the property.

Damn woman needed a break.

And she was gonna take one whether she wanted to take one or not.

He took a drag from the cigarette he'd lit after she went inside and contemplated what he was gonna say in order to get her to go back inside. Kat wasn't going to agree to going back in just because he asked her to do it. Nor would she agree to go in just because he didn't think she was mentally up for killing anything after what she went through that afternoon with Jo. She would calmly point out that she didn't have time to stand about and piss and moan about what happened with her sister when there was trouble standing on their doorstep. She would tell him that she was gonna stand and fight because it was what she knew to do, it was all she could do, and because it was necessary for her to stay and help. Protecting the group was how she was going to cope with Jo's death. It was her response to the feelings of guilt swirling around inside her and saying all sorts of ugly things he wished he could silence for her.

Knowing that, though, only dulled his need to keep her safe a fraction of an inch. He wasn't being rational, he knew that he wasn't. There wasn't anything he could do about how he felt. There simply wasn't some button he could push that turned his protective mode on or off. It was all or nothing with him. Something the damned woman knew about and apparently chose to ignore when she decided to come back out here. He took one final drag of the cigarette and flicked the butt away before grumbling over his shoulder, "Get your ass back inside and take care of them kids."

"I assume you meant that for Kat," he heard Carol say in a voice that brimmed with amusement, "and not for me."

_Shit, wrong person_ , he thought, barely hiding a flinch. He composed his features before glancing over at Carol as she joined him at the porch railing.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "Thought that..." his voice trailed off as he shifted from one foot to the other. "Hell," he grumbled over the laughter that sounded from above, "you already know what I was thinkin'."

She gave a short, almost imperceptible nod of her head. "Today has been just as trying for you as it has been on Kat." She looked over at him, a slight smile on her lips. "You told Kat to go inside and protect the kids because you want to protect her and shield her from any more ugliness. That's your way of protecting those you care about," she said in her usual calm and rational voice. "That's how you choose to respond to these sorts of situations."

"Ain't about me," he grumbled. "About her."

"And the reason why you're out of sorts is because the second you heard that door open," again there was a wealth of amusement in her voice that only made him fidget more, "you figured she chose not to remain inside as you ordered her too."

"Be just like her to ignore what I tell her," was his gruffly uttered response. "Woman is as stubborn as a mule."

"Well," she laughed. "There's the pot calling the kettle black."

He made a  _ffff_  sound. "I ain't as stubborn as Kat."

"No, you're more stubborn than she is, actually."

He grunted, "Whatever," at that. "Woman is a mule."

"You are both bullheaded."

Daryl chose not to reply to that. Way he saw it? It was Kat who was hardheaded, not him. A movement along the edge of the property had him swing his gaze back to the road. Shadows moved, but they were so closely together that it made counting how many difficult. Best he could do was make out shapes between flashes of lightning.

Carol moved a step closer and peered through the curtain of rain. "How many are there?"

"Twenty, maybe thirty," he replied in a subdued voice. "Can't tell since they are moving so close together."

Carol heaved a sigh. "Well, that's not what I had hoped you would say."

It wasn't what he had hoped to say, either.

"Is everybody ready in case they come this way?"

"As ready as they can be," she told him. "Glenn and Abraham are checking the backyard while Morgan is checking the right side. Everyone else is dividing up what rooms they are going to take."

He nodded. "And what about Kat and Rick?"

"Well," there was that hint of humor again in her tone. "I don't think you're going to have to worry about Kat or Rick coming out here to help with the walker threat."

"Yeah?" Daryl lifted a brow. "And why you thinkin' they ain't gonna be comin' out here?"

Only silently did he add, _I'm hopin' it's cause Kat figured out that Rick needs to take a step back and let things settle same as she does._

"Well, when I went to check on the kids I could hear Rick and Kat talking in his bedroom." Her lips curved. "She was ordering him to take care of Judith and Bo while she follows your orders to take care of him."

It was what he hoped would happen when he sent her inside. Daryl nodded to indicate he heard her and went back to watching the ramshackle shapes lurking not more than hundred feet away. As long as Kat- _and Rick_ , he amended silently, remained inside, he was cool. They'd had enough bullshit tossed at them for one day, they didn't need this shit, too. Carol watched with him for a number of silent moments. The walkers just stood there at the edge of the property, seemingly lost, but they both knew it was only a matter of time before they'd catch their scent. Then, as they knew, it would become one frenzied mass of un-dead hysteria as the horde followed the only instinct this world had left to them: to feed.

"Kat's the reason for why you've never gotten involved with anybody at any point in the last few years." Carol glanced over at him. "Isn't she?"

It wasn't really phrased as a question and Daryl knew he could choose not to answer her, but there was a voice in his head telling him that he needed to say something. He just wasn't sure what the something was that he should say. He wasn't used to explaining himself or his relationships with people. Things just...  _were_  to him. Like Kat and he just were. However, he had a feeling that Carol wasn't going to accept that as an answer. So he settled upon a mumbled, "Yeah."

Her lips curved into a somber smile. "You could have told us that you had someone, you know."

"Nobody asked if I had someone."

"You wouldn't have said even if we had asked."

He chose not to reply to that. Not that Carol seemed to have expected him, too. No, she just moved a step closer and dropped her voice to a low whisper.

"Is Kat also why you decided to take that book from the woman's shelter we stayed in while searching for Beth?"

He didn't have to ask her about what book she was talking about. He knew what one it was:  _Treating Survivors of Child Abuse: Psychotherapy for the Interrupted Life_. He wasn't completely sure about why he'd taken the damned book.  _No_ , he realized, that wasn't true. He knew why he had taken the book. It had been because it had reminded him of the fight had with Kat right before the evacuation order had been given. He'd seen the book as a sign saying that she was alive; that she was out there and was waiting for him to find her. And he had started reading the goddamn thing, despite not having a whole lotta time to waste on things like reading, because he felt he owed it to her to finally take some steps towards understanding what was wrong with him.

It wasn't like he needed some faceless asshole telling him about how he grew up in a dysfunctional household. He knew he had. Who the hell hadn't grown up with some sort of family problems, though? Hell, it wasn't like anybody needed to tell him about how his father liked to beat on him and Merle whenever he took the notion too. He had the scars to prove what his father had done to him. Not that he planned to ever tell Carol about them. There was only one person now who knew about the scars on his back and as far as he was concerned? It was gonna remain that way. No, what he'd found himself wondering about was the  _why_. Not that he planned on explaining any of that to Carol, either.

"I took the damn thing 'cause Kat was readin' it." His tone clearly conveyed how he didn't really want to talk about the book, but when she merely lifted a brow in silent question, he grumbled an explanation, "She was takin' some classes before this shit went down and one of 'em required her to read the damned thing."

"She was reading it for a class?" There was genuine interest, as well as a twinge of surprise that rankled, in Carol's tone. "What sort of class was she taking that it required reading a book about surviving domestic violence?"

"All I know is that it was some psychology class."

"So," she said slowly; thoughtfully. "Kat was going to school before this all happened. Was she doing it as a way to better herself?"

Daryl swallowed the surge of irritation that sprang, hot and bitter tasting into his throat, telling himself that she didn't know Kat personally, that she had no idea about what sort of woman she had been before the world had gone to hell.

"She'd just gone back to school when things went down," he told her in a low tone that bordered upon a growl. "Was workin' on some bullshit requirements the state told her she needed in order to renew her nursin' license."

"Kat's a nurse?"

"Yep." His teeth gnashed when a flash of light showed that both her eyebrows were arched in disbelief. "She's a damned good one, too."

"Now that," she teased lightly, "are the words of a man who is extremely proud of his other half."

Daryl made a  _ttch_  sound. "She ain't my-"

"Yes." Carol's voice was coated in tempered steel. "She is." She placed a gentle hand on his arm. "You wouldn't have held on as strongly as you did to your belief that you'd find her if she wasn't."

"Maybe."

"No," Carol refuted in a no less firm tone than before. "There's no  _maybe_  about it. You remained faithful to her because you knew she was out there and waiting for you to find her. Besides that," she said before he could even try and deny what she was saying. Not that he could. He knew as well as she did that everything she was saying was the truth. "You aren't the sort of man to screw around on the one you're with."

Before, someone analyzing him would have pissed him off. Only Kat had ever been allowed to dig below the surface and see all the bullshit he kept locked inside. That was because she'd been there through all of it. She'd seen what all had gone on, she'd treated the cuts and the bruises, heard every word that had been spoken. Kat knew about more than the crap, though. She also knew about the way he felt about her. Not that he'd told her far enough.

"For what it's worth," he heard Carol say above the screech of the wind. "I am glad that you found her. Especially," she added on a long breath, "after what happened today with her sister. She needs you." She squeezed his arm. "Same as you need her."

Daryl just nodded, not sure what he was supposed to even say or how he oughta go about saying it. He was thankfully spared from having to say anything at all when a gunshot sounded above the wind and rain.

"Stay here," he ordered as he hefted his crossbow. "If you see anything, yell."

He was already vaulting the railing and making his way around to the side of the house when she said: "Okay."

...

Glenn edged along the side wall of the house, staying low and close to the building so as to avoid detection. He kept his eyes and ears open for any sight or sound that would alert him to a walkers' approach. A large shadow crept by the window of the sunroom and he paused, hand cleansing upon the butt of the gun he carried in a purely instinctual motion. Voices whispering and the back sliding door opening had electric currents of anticipation dancing in his veins, pooling in his belly. Any minute he anticipated that whoever was stepping out onto the back patio would whisper that the walkers were "coming up from the back" and "get ready."

What he heard, though, was Abraham saying, "I'm gonna go out and give Glenn a hand with checking the back of the house. You stay here and keep watch. Call out if you see anything."

He was about to call out to the Sergeant when he heard another voice, a lower and more feminine one that he recognized as Rosita's, reply, "Just be careful, okay?"

"Roger and wilco," was the gruff reply.

Glenn breathed out a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding. With Rosita at the back door, Michonne and Carol standing guard in the front room, Maggie and Sasha watching from the kitchen, Rick and Kat in the back bedroom with the kids, and Daryl out on the front porch, the house was secure. With him, Abraham and Morgan scouring the perimeter of the property, there was no way that walkers would be gaining admittance to the house. Not easily, at least, and not without them having ample time in which to take them out. Then he heard the light, shuffling tread of footsteps coming from around the front of the house and realized that one or more of the undead was making its way in his direction.

_Where's Daryl_? he silently wondered as he crept towards the front. He never once doubted that the man wasn't okay. He'd seen him face down much worse and walk away with only bruises and cuts. Lightning flashed and he saw a figure standing between a jagged opening in the fence. A cool calm settled over Glenn as he prepared himself for what he was about to do. It wasn't like he had to overly think about what he was going to do. He'd done this so many times now that it had become like second nature to him.

Almost without realizing it, he felt a shift deep within himself, recognized it as the man he was, the relatively laid back and law abiding sorta man he had been before the apocalypse, receding into the background so that the man he'd had to become in order to survive this new world could handle the menace threatening his friends and family. He crept over to the break in the fence, paused just at the opening, his gun held up in front of him, hammer cocked and his finger on the trigger. He felt more than heard whoever or whatever was on the other side as they reached the opening and without pausing to consider the danger or possible ramifications of his actions, swung through the opening to confront them.

His eyes popped open when he found himself face-to-face with a crossbow a second later. "Whoa, man," he gulped. "Could you aim that thing somewhere other than at me?"

"Don't you think that if I was gonna shoot your ass," Daryl drawled as he slowly lowered the crossbow, "That I'd have done it by now?"

"Real comforting, man," Glenn replied in as dry a tone as his. "Seriously, glad to know that if it wasn't that you liked me that you'd have shot me."

"Just sayin'," Daryl said with a smirk.

Whatever Glenn might have said in reply was swallowed when the  _pop! pop_! of a gun being discharged cut through the thunder roaring above.

"Back?" he asked Daryl.

"Front."

He nodded and followed Daryl around to the front of the house. Carol was standing on the porch with her gun still held up in both hands. One walker lay face down on the ground with half its head blown away while another crawled across the ground making those gurgling noises that Glenn imagined would haunt him even into the afterlife. A knife to the head silenced that one forever.

"You a'ight?" Daryl asked as he got back to his feet.

"I'm fine," Carol assured him. "But-"

"...we got us some big ass problems," Abraham panted as he came barreling around the side of the house.

"What sort of problems?" Glenn and Daryl asked in unison.

_Not_ , Glenn realized right after the words had left their lips that they really needed to ask. The band of walkers at the front of the property and lurking amongst the trees that surrounded the house told them what problems they had. However, Abraham's news slammed into them with the force of two runaway trains.

"We got a horde of these sons of bitches all along the back of the property," he wheezed.

 


	12. Chapter 12

"We got a horde of these sons of bitches all along the back of the property."

The words registered, but the logical portion of Glenn's brain refused to analyze them. "How many walkers we talking about?" he asked in a voice he almost didn't recognize as his own. "We talking about a small horde?" Silently, he prayed,  _please, let it be six or seven_. "Or are we talking about one as big as the one at the quarry?"

"Enough to piss our pants over," came the Sargeant's gruff reply. "That much I can tell you."

Glenn muttered a curse and mentally counted how many bullets were left in his gun.  _Nine_. Not enough. Nowhere near enough. Every ounce of ammo had been left behind when they fled the horde that swarmed Alexandria. They had had no choice but to leave everything behind. The choices had been to either cut and run or stay and die. All of them had chosen to flee. Now they had another horde advancing upon them and not enough ammo to put all of them down.

"When it rains," he sighed, "it pours."

Abraham glanced at him, one bushy brow tilted. "How many of these mother fuck nuts we got out here?"

"At least twenty," Carol answered for him. "Maybe more. We aren't sure exactly since they are hidden by the trees at the edge of the property."

Abraham grunted a curse before swinging his gaze to the road in order to take inventory for himself of how many walkers were coming at them from the road and the woods running alongside the front of the farm. Glenn could tell with every flash of lightning that the numbers were not sitting well with him. When Abraham finished counting, he ran a large hand over his whiskered face, smothering a few more choice expletives before muttering, "Goddamn it, we got another thirty or forty of these tick turds coming up from the back."

"Shit," Glenn breathed out. "Shit shit shit."

"Shit don't even begin to cover it," Abraham stated grimly. "We're in the middle of one huge cluster fuck without enough boots on the ground to dig our asses' outta the shit."

Carol let out a tiny sigh. "And we don't have enough ammo to take on this many walkers."

"No, ma'am," Abraham agreed with a slight nod of his head. In the flash of light that burst overhead, his eyes were bleak. "We do not have enough ammo to stop this many walkers. And while knives are useful," he added on a long sigh, "they ain't gonna be of much use if we get bombarded all at once by these sons of dicks."

It was a sad truth that none of them could deny. Glenn had found himself in that tight of a situation on more than one occasion and only managed to get out by sheer dumb luck and the timely arrival of help. Even with all of them standing at each other's backs there was the likelihood of someone being bitten or worse yet, killed. Carol flicked her gaze over to Daryl, who had been silent ever since Abraham had rushed out to deliver his extremely bad news.

"Much as you won't like hearing this and will not want to agree," she spoke gently but firmly. "You know that we are going to have to bring Rick and Kat into this." She glanced at Glenn and Abraham, who nodded in silent agreement. "We have to figure out what to do as a group if we want to manage to survive this attack. And they got a right to a say, same as everybody."

Daryl had seemingly already come to that conclusion for himself because Glenn saw he was heading for the front door before Carol even finished the last part of her statement.

...

"What's wrong with my dad?"

Kat started at Carl's whisper. She glanced sideways at him, not sure what even to say, much less what to actually think about his question. She had not expected him to question her about what was wrong with his father, had figured that he would either ask Rick directly about his nightmares or just let the subject pass because he would figure it was one of those subjects that would get the pad "mind your business" adult response.

_Guess I misread that_ , she thought as she drew in a shaky breath. Wasn't the first time that she misread a situation or someone, though. She much doubted that it would be the last time she would make that sort of error. She released her indrawn breath slowly, feeling her galloping pulse slowly return to normal as every particle of air was expelled. Finally, she turned her head in order to look fully at him. He had crouched beside her to make it look less obvious that he was quizzing her about what had happened between her and his father. Her lips trembled in spite of the shaky grounds the kid had placed her upon with his question. She glanced over at Rick, saw that he was preoccupied with entertaining Jackson, Bo and Judith with a story-  _The Three Little Pigs_ , she saw with a small degree of amusement.  _Least it ain't somethin' outta the new book of Hard Knox_... she mused before sighing. She glanced back at Carl.

"There ain't a thing wrong with your daddy," she told him honestly. "Well, nothin' except that he woke up from one traumatic event and found himself smack dab in the middle of a never endin' one."

Carl stared at her a moment, his eyes that quietly intense blue his fathers could get when he was doing some deep thinking. Twin gurgles of baby laughter rang out above the cacophony that rattled the roof and shook the windows. Carl turned his head, silently watching as Bo and Judith clapped their delight at the wolf huffing and puffing and blowing the house of straw down. After watching for a few more minutes he said in a dark, moody voice, "Are you sure my dad's not crazy?"

_Aha_ , was Kat's thought.  _So it goes as deep as all that does it, kiddo_?

"Honey, believe me, there ain't any part of your daddy that has gone off the deep end."

_Mighta gone around the bend a little,_ she added silently. She kept the thought to herself, however. Carl already was questioning Rick's sanity. He didn't need her adding any fuel to the fire.

"Right," she heard him scoff.

"His biscuits are all baked, kid," she told him in a gentle, but firm tone. "You can trust me 'bout that."

"It really looked like his biscuits were all baked when he had his hand around your throat."

"Yeah, well, about that?" she said. "It ain't what all you're thinking it was."

"If it isn't what I'm thinking it was," he muttered in a tone that was eerily reminiscent of the one that Rick had used when he found out why she had come in to wake him, "then what was it?"

_Yeah, you're just like your daddy_ , she mused while considering how best to respond to his question. And that, she could already tell, was part of the tension between father and son. They had similar personalities, shared traumatic experiences, and were living in close confines while dealing with the usual teenage and parental angst. It was a recipe fraught with disaster.

"Carl," she said finally. "Your daddy has somethin' called Post-Traumatic Stress. Have you heard of it?" She felt more than saw him nod. "A'ight, well, people who suffer from PTSD tend to get caught up in somethin' I like to call a waking dream."

"A waking dream?" There was a thick note of skepticism in his voice that had her lips curving. "What's that?"

"It's where the mind is caught somewhere between a conscious and dreamlike state," she told him. "The person is essentially awake, they can be capable of holdin' a rational conversation, but their mind is still befuddled by whatever it is seein'. That's what happened to your daddy. He was caught inside a waking dream. He," she added while setting a hand upon his shoulder, "can't be blamed for what he did because he wasn't really aware of what he was doin'."

"So," he said slowly; thoughtfully. "He was awake, but not really."

"Yup." She nodded. "He was seeing and hearing things from his dream despite holdin' a perfectly rational conversation with the both of us."

"What made him react like he did?" he finally asked her. "Why did he grab you like that?"

Kat breathed out a sigh as she tried to form an answer that would satisfy his inquiry.

"Well, now, honey, that's a bit more complicated to explain."

"Why?"

"'Cause I dunno what might have triggered his flashback," she admitted quietly. "All I know is he was seein' somethin'. What that somethin' was? I dunno. Just that it involved me. I don't know what it was or what set it off, though."

"Triggers?" A flash of light revealed that his brow was puckered with his curiousity. "What are those?"

"Triggers are things that make the mind flashback to the incident in question," she explained patiently. "In your daddy's case the trigger coulda been the sound of the storm, somethin' I said or did, or even a particular smell. I don't know."

The kid quietly mulled her words over. Kat studied him while there was a lull in the conversation. Carl was a lot like Rick and most of it temperament wise, but there were also glimmers of his father in the way that he investigated and learned about things, in how he processed information and approached situations as well. In the before world, those traits could well have led him into following in his father's professional footsteps and becoming a police officer.

"So the reason why he thought you were hurt," he murmured after a few more minutes of silence, "is because whatever was inside his head was showing him that you were still bleeding. And," he continued when he heard her murmur of agreement, "he was trying to stop the blood by wrapping his hand around the wound."

"Mhm." She squeezed his shoulder. "He was reactin' to what he perceived as being a real serious situation. Just," she added a second later, "as he was trained to do."

Carl was silent for all of thirty seconds. At first she thought he was just trying to come up with some typical teenage wisecrack in order to cover up whatever was really on his mind. When Kat felt the shoulder beneath her palm slump and saw that proud head fall forward, she knew that this went well beyond just the normal dark and brooding mood of the average teenager. This boy was worried, deeply so, about this world claiming his father. Lord, she knew about that fear. She had lived with it every day since this nightmare masquerading as the new reality began.  _And I still ended up losing Jo in the end,_  she thought with a pang.

"This isn't the first time he's lost it." His voice was so low that she had to strain to even hear him. "It's happened before."

Kat had a pretty good idea about when at least one of those times that Rick had gone a bit crazy most likely was. Not that she could blame him any.  _If I were to lose_... she didn't even allow herself to finish that particular thought. Not that preventing herself from thinking Daryl's name stopped the flood of fear or the bands of panic. She set them aside- not away for that was beyond her, and focused upon the present. Daryl was alive and outside dealing with the walkers in their front yard. Could she understand why Rick might have lost his grip with reality after Carl's mother died?  _You betcha_. She much doubted she'd be able to remain anything  _close_  to sane if she lost Daryl. However, Kat suspected that Rick was carrying around much more than just his wife's death. She made a mental note to speak with Daryl about it once things were settled and quiet. Carl drew his knees into his chest with a small sigh. It was a position she'd seen others- Daryl, especially, use a thousand times before. It was the defensive tactic of someone who was trying to insulate themselves against what they saw as the inevitable.

"Hey, kiddo." She draped an arm around him in a warm and comforting embrace. "It's gonna be a'right. Ain't nothin' gonna happen to your daddy."  _Or any other member of this group_ , she added silently. "I promise you that. A'ight?"

"I know. It's just..." he trailed off into a sigh.

"It's just you've already lost your mama," she spoke gently now, "and as much as your daddy tends to annoy the ever livin' hell outta you, you still ain't ready to lose him."

"Yeah."

"I can understand that." She smothered a curse as muscles that had gone stiff protested when she stretched her legs out in front of her. "I weren't ready to lose my daddy when I lost him, neither."

Carl glanced at her from the corner of his eye. In the brief flash that illuminated the room, she could see his face was guarded, but curious. "You lost your dad?" At her nod he asked, "When?"

_Was it during the initial days of the infestation_? was what he really wanted to ask. She knew it and he knew it. That he didn't ask, though, suggested that he still had hope that not everybody that people had lost had been because of the walkers.

"Well, I reckon that it was..." she pondered slowly. Days and time tended to blur when you didn't have electrical devices to help keep you on track. "Hrm, I'm guessing it must have been a little over a year before this crud all went down that my daddy passed."

"What happened to him?"

"He had a heart attack while connecting the air brakes on a train engine that was being moved to a different part of the train yard."

_Odd_ , she realized. Odd how even after all these years that grief and sadness could still do somersaults inside her whenever she remembered that her daddy was dead.  _At least he missed seeing the world go to hell_. The thought didn't provide her any consolation.

Not that she honestly had imagined that it would.

"A train engine?" One eyebrow forked. "Your dad was a conductor or something?"

"He started out as a conductor but spent the last few years as a hostler, actually." She smiled in spite of the hurt because these were good memories and should be accorded the joy they deserved. "He spent thirty years of his life working for the old Southern Railroad."

Carl's reaction to that bit of information was instant. Even in the dark she could see the blood drain from his face. Alarm careened inside Kat and she shifted more fully towards him, but a loud  _bang_! and the sounds of dozens of cans rolling across the floor prevented her from finding out what was wrong. Everybody, save for the oblivious toddlers, leapt to their feet. Kat heard feet crossing the living and dining room floors and was about to head down the darkened hall to check out what was going on herself when Maggie called out.

"The shelf in the pantry just let go! There's no need to panic."

Everyone breathed a sigh and went back to watching and waiting for the real hammer to drop on them. Kat settled again in the doorway, her bow balanced across her knees, her every sense on alert. Every nerve in her body was tingling with expectation. The very air itself was charged with an electrical current that was not coming from the storm outside. The Pale Rider was coming, she just knew it.  _And he ain't gonna be drivin' around in no 1959 Cadillac Eldorado with a California license plate that reads BUH*BYE, neither._ No, the Grim Reaper was going to be atop his white steed, wielding that deathly scythe in one bony hand, and reaping whatever souls just happened to foolishly cross his path.

"So are you actually as good as Daryl with your bow?" Carl asked once things were quiet again.

"Carl," Rick said reproachfully.

"What?"

"That wasn't exactly a politely phrased question."

"Sorry," was his automatic reply. Half a second later, though, he demanded, "Well, are you?"

"Carl." There was a veiled note of warning and exasperation now in Rick's voice. "What did I just tell you?"

"What?" the boy huffed. "I'm just asking her if she is as good a shot as Daryl. What's so bad about that?"

"You aren't asking it politely is what's wrong with it."

Carl muttered a few things below his breath that Kat and Rick both weren't very nice before he said, "Can you shoot your bow as well as Daryl shoots his crossbow?" Then he shot a look-a  _glare_  was more like it at his father. "That better?"

"Yes," Rick replied. "Mind that snotty tone next time, though."

Carl just sighed before turning his head to look expectantly at Kat. She flashed an amused look at Rick before replying.

"Am I as good with a bow as Daryl is?" She shook her head. "Nope, I sure ain't." She winked at him then. "But there ain't nobody as good as Rambo with a bow."

"You can shoot, though, right?"

"Oh, I can shoot," she assured him with a grin. "I can hit my target eight out of every ten times I shoot, in fact." It wasn't a boast so much as an honestly stated fact. "I can even manage to hit targets ten out of ten times depending on incentives."

"Incentives?" he frowned. "What incentives?"

"Like pointing out how often she tends to obey Daryl," Rick joked.

Kat just shook her head and sighed.

"There you go flappin' your gums again, Rick."

"You know I'm telling the truth, Kat."

She made a  _ttch_  sound. "I don't know any such thing, darlin'."

Rick breathed out a soft laugh while picking up Judith and holding her. "Just keep telling yourself that."

"Does Daryl ever let you shoot his crossbow?" Carl asked while Kat snickered.

"You mean Lola?" She grinned. "Yeah, he lets me shoot her at times."

" _Lola_?" Rick and Carl said in unison.

" _That's_  what he calls his crossbow?" from Rick. " _Lola_?"

"Yep." she nodded. "That's what he calls the one he's using now. One of his other crossbows he called Darlene."

"Lola," Carl breathed out in awe. "Wow..."

"What?" she teased. "You were expectin' that he named his crossbow after me or somethin'?"

"Well," Carl said slowly. "Yeah."

"My other crossbow was named Mule," they heard Daryl say quietly from the hallway. "'Cause it could be just as stubborn as she is."

Kat glanced up at the man surrounded by the darkness, the ghost of a smile curving her lips. Her pulse kicked, as it always did whenever he spoke, but there was also a slow building dread beneath the pleasure that told her he wasn't coming in because the walkers had been handled.

"Yeah?" she drawled. "Would you like to know what I call my bow?"

"Jack ass?" Rick guessed. "Or Kettle?"

"Neither one, actually," she said even as Daryl heaved a sound that was somewhere between a curse and a sigh. "Though,  _now_  that you mention it... jackass would be fittin'."

"Don't tell me that you call it Rambo?"

"Sure do."

"Should have known that that is what you would name it," Rick laughed. "Can't imagine anything else you would call it, actually."

"Well, I could have called it-"

"Quiet," Daryl grumbled. "Or I'm gonna gag you."

The words lacked the teasing note that they had held just a few hours ago. It said clearly that whatever was going on was no laughing matter. Kat slowly rose to face him, every hair on her body pulsating with the electricity crackling in the air.

"What's wrong?"

His eyes flicked to hers, spoke volumes. "Got trouble."

"Yeah, we got that, honey," she replied as she stepped up to him, rest a hand on his chest. "How bad?"

He reached up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. His thumb skimmed over her cheek in a feather light caress. "The usual."

Behind them, Rick heaved a sigh. "So," he said. "We're in the shit up to our eyeballs."

Daryl nodded before saying, "Just like we always are."

"Well," Rick said as he got to his feet. "Guess we need to do what we always do: dig our way out."

 


	13. Chapter 13

Morning found Rick seated at the makeshift table in the kitchen with Judith. A cup of what  _loosely_  could be called coffee lazily steamed by his left hand. He ignored it as he spooned up a mixture of applesauce and oatmeal with his right. Thin ribbons of sunlight slipped through the dusty blinds covering the small boxed bay window to play around his feet. The bright sunniness was a definite switch from the torrential sludge that had continued to pummel them until just a few short hours ago. The bipolar weather wasn't the most pressing thought upon his mind at that moment, though. No, the thoughts currently weighing the heaviest upon him were all centered around the events from the night before. A slight frown puckered Rick's brow as he scooped up more of the grayish goop. How they had managed to survive the walker invasion continued to baffle him. He didn't have one damned clue about how they had managed to survive. Not when the odds had been well and truly stacked against them. The number of walkers that came at them had been more than their meager weapon supply had been prepared to deal with. Death had seemed almost inevitable. And yet somehow, in some way, everyone had managed to come away with little more than a few minor cuts, scrapes and bruises to show for it.  _How_? he found himself wondering as he fed another bite of the cereal to Judith.

The only reason he had for why they had managed to survive came down to a radically ingenious idea from Kat. He had believed that stringing pieces of razor wire that had been found just lying in a pile of debris in the front yard across the front porch and through the slats of the wood awning that enclosed the back patio to be a waste of both their time and energy. They had far more pressing matters they needed to devote their attention had been his argument. However, once the wire had been strung, he had been able to see the logic behind the suggestion. The first walkers who tried to rush at them had become snared on the sharp barbs, creating a physical wall that the rest of the undead mob couldn't get through, no matter how much they tried. Rick had much doubted that the barricade would actually hold the walkers off for very long, but it somehow managed to keep the horde at bay long enough for them to manage to reduce their numbers down to a more manageable number.

"Daddy?" Judith broke the silence to extol in one long toddler sound of annoyance. "Daddy?"

Rick shook himself free of his dark musings and glanced down at the little girl who was waiting, rather patiently for a toddler, for him to serve her more of her rapidly cooling breakfast.

"Yes, Judith?" he asked, the ghost of a smile hovering upon his lips. "What is it that you'd like?"

A sigh was filled by, "More, pease."

He immediately obliged her request by spooning more of the oatmeal into her waiting mouth.

"That better?" he teased.

She gave a nod of her head, swallowed and stated, "Yes."

Rick breathed out a soft chuckle as he spooned up more of the gloopy cereal. As he scraped the spoon against the side of the bowl, he started to realize just how much Judith had grown in the last couple of months. The changes were as much physical as they were mental. She was walking and talking now, and much more aware of her environment than she had been just a few months before. Every day she was picking up some new piece of information about the world and using it to form her own thoughts and opinions. She had started to question things she didn't know or understand, to test where the limits of her boundaries were, and discovering through her own means and methods about what the differences between right and wrong was. Before too long she would start needing things like books and other sorts of educational tools in order to develop her growing mind properly.  _And she will need people there who can help her with learning all those complex life skills she'll need in order to navigate the uncertain roads that are ahead_. In short, she was going to need even more supervision than they were already giving her since she didn't quite understand, not yet, at least, that there were things-  _people_ , he instantly corrected, who would think nothing about hurting a small child in order to satisfy their own wants and needs.

"Daddy," he heard her sigh. "Water, pease."

Rick set the bowl of cereal aside and reached for the sippy cup Daryl had found during one of his many scavenging expeditions.

"Here you go."

"Tank you," she replied as she grasped the handles of the cup with both hands.

"You're welcome."

Rick watched as she carefully lifted the cup to take a sip of the water. Her motor skills might have greatly improved, but she still had a habit of dropping her cups when she was done drinking from them. He glanced up when a sound, like a shovel scraping stone echoed from outside.  _Abraham, Glenn and Morgan must be back from taking care of the bodies_ , he thought with a slight pang. He definitely owed the three men for stepping up as they had and handling such a nasty cleanup job.  _I owe them for much more than just disposing of the bodies_ , he realized as he picked up his mug and took a long swallow of the now tepid brew.

"Look, daddy," he heard Judith giggle.

He glanced at her; saw she had smeared huge globs of the gray goop into her strawberry blonde curls and across her rounded cheeks. He shook his head as he used the towel he had dampened to wipe away what he could.

"You like wearing this stuff more than you actually enjoy eating it, don't you?" Judith replied by smiling that smile that caused her face to glow as if a thousand tiny suns were shining beneath her skin. It was a glow that always made him feel as if he was a better father than he thought himself to be. "Keep it up and you'll need a bath."

"No," she chortled with a gleeful look upon her face. "No, bath."

"Don't tell me no." Silently, he added,  _your brother tells me no enough for the two of you_. However, his two-year-old daughter had developed a love affair with the  _no_  word a few months ago and used it now about as frequently as he did the word  _shit_.

"No, daddy!" she repeated with a miles wide grin that obliterated the last of the darkness clinging to him with icy fingers. "No, no, no!" she sang while clapping her oatmeal covered hands. "No, bath!"

Rick resisted the urge to smile. How he had forgotten about the  _no_  phase was beyond him. It was almost as obnoxious as the teenage stage.  _Almost_.

"Yes, bath," he told her firmly. "You are covered in oatmeal and applesauce."

"No," Judith promptly replied with another toothy grin. "No, bath."

"Sounds to me like Little Ass Kicker don't wanna take no bath," he heard Daryl drawl.

Rick glanced up and saw Daryl standing in the doorway with Bo in his arms.

"Well, she's gonna take a bath," he told him as he spooned the last of the oatmeal into her mouth. "Whether she wants to take said bath or not."

"No," came his diplomatic daughter's remarkably firm answer. "No, bath."

He heard a soft sound that may have passed for a laugh before Daryl said, "She done told your ass."

"Just you wait." He indicated Bo with the spoon he held in his hand still. "That little fella is gonna be telling you no before too long."

"Maybe." Daryl glanced down at the toddler who was studying him with an equal mixture of curiosity and uncertainty. "He needs a bath, though, he gonna get one. Ain't gonna be any no about it."

"I can imagine the terrible two's are gonna be a ball of fun for you."

Rick saw an echo of raw vulnerability and doubt darken Daryl's face as he stared down into eyes the same shade of gray as Kat's. A multitude of questions swam through that lucent gaze, and all of them, Rick knew, being filed in order of the amount of fear each one was causing him to feel. Seeing Daryl, who was always cool and calm when shit turned ugly, suddenly doubting himself and his ability to care for the toddler he held was a hard kick to Rick's gut. Not that Daryl's reaction really surprised him. Like many of the others, he had long ago figured out that Dary's upbringing had been less than warm and nurturing. His standoffish and aggressive behavior, his skittishness when confronted with situations that required him to use interpersonal type skills, his lack of confidence in himself and the way he tended to stay by himself all spoke of a hard and cold existence. Rick suspected there had been a pattern of violence in the Dixon household that he fully believed started with Merle before moving onto Daryl.  _And he seemingly took the lion's share of the abuse_ , he thought with a frown. Why that was, he didn't know. He couldn't begin to fabricate a reason that would work to justify what had been done to Daryl. There simply wasn't any excuse for it. It was repeating that pattern that he suspected Daryl worried about the most. Patterns of abuse tended to repeat themselves over and over. Daryl fearing that he could do to his children what had been done to him and his brother was perfectly reasonable in his mind.  _It's only to be expected that he'd fear copying that pattern_.

However, he'd seen the way that he was with Judith.  _And with Carl_ , he mused as he watched him maneuver around the kitchen. Daryl had a natural affinity with children, was never anything but patient with them and was at ease whenever he was around them. However, Rick also knew that how a person tended to be around someone else's children was different to how they'd be around their own. Daryl wasn't going to just be a friend, fellow survivor or even a sort of older brother or uncle to Bo. If he decided to step into those shoes and Rick was nearly a hundred percent certain he was going to do so, well, then, he was going to essentially be the boy's father.

_A_ first _time father_ , he realized with a start. Rick knew that that fact, alone, was probably eating away at what little bit of confidence Daryl may have had in himself.  _I remember how terrified I was when Carl was born,_ he thought as he settled Judith in his lap. _I imagined I'd do everything wrong, that I wouldn't know what to do if he was sick or injured, that I'd end up being unable to provide him with everything that he wants or needs._

He was still terrified of all those things, even more so now that he was a single parent raising his kids in a post-zombie apocalyptic world. Fear, though, was something he learned was part and parcel with being a parent. Fearing for their safety, their well-being, worrying that you were doing or saying the right things, that you were giving them everything they needed... it was all a part of the package that came with being a parent. He learned that when you decided to become a parent that you had to accept that you were going to be a neurotic mess for the rest of your life. He had been involved in the process and agreed to take on all the responsibilities that came with being a parent, though. Daryl, on the other hand, had more or less fallen onto the path of fatherhood when he stumbled across Kat burying her sister.

He had not woken up the day before anticipating that he would find Kat, much less become responsible for the welfare of not just one, but  _two_  children. That he was struggling with coming to terms with suddenly being presented with the option of becoming a father was something that Rick could not only understand, but empathize with him over. He had nine months to come around to accepting that he was about to become a father. Daryl had been given less than one night. That just wasn't enough time for  _anybody_  to process; much less actually  _accept_  such a monumental change to their life.

"Kids don't come with a manual," he told the other man quietly. "Or a set of instructions that tell you about what's the right way or wrong way to raise them." He dodged one of Judith's fists with the ease and comfort of a man well used to having to avoid such well-timed blows. "You're gonna make mistakes along the way. Gonna make a  _lot_  of mistakes, in fact," he added with a wealth of emotion coating every word. "And he won't always like you, will frequently tell you that he hates you and test your patience every chance he gets, but you just got to tell yourself over and over that you are doing your best. And remember that so long as you love him, are there for him, he'll turn out alright in the end."

Daryl just nodded and poured the applesauce Rick had left on the counter into a blue bowl. Rick watched and waited, knowing that the other man would talk if there was something he felt needed to be asked or said. Judith and Bo happily filled the silence by babbling back and forth at each other. Their obvious joy at having found a friend their own size and age sparked a momentary flash of guilt in Rick. Alexandria was supposed to be the safe haven, the place where they'd all get a chance to begin again and build new lives for themselves. Instead, the city had fallen, overrun in the end by the childlike ideals of people who hadn't realized just how dangerous it really was outside their walls.

"You know you aren't alone in raising Bo," he finally said after a number of moments had elapsed. "You got Kat there to help you. And the rest of us will be there as well."

"Hell," Daryl muttered. "I know that. It's just-"

"... terrifying as all hell," Rick supplied for him. He nodded. "Yeah, I know it is. I had nine months in order to prepare myself for becoming a father. You've had less than twenty-four hours to even think about it."

"Ain't nothin' to think about."

There was a veiled note of warning in Daryl's tone that told Rick to tread carefully. Family was Daryl's main trigger. You didn't threaten or talk shit about a member of his family. Not if you liked chewing with all your teeth. However, it was also a telltale sign about what the other man's thoughts were about the small boy currently playing a game of peek-a-boo with Judith.

"Kat isn't asking you to decide things right now," he pointed out in a cool, logical tone. "And I doubt she is going to force you into stepping up and being Bo's dad. Kat-"

"...knows she ain't gotta ask me to step up and be his dad," Daryl grumbled as he switched Bo to his other hip. "She knows there ain't nobody else who is gonna help her with raising him."

"It's not just Bo that she took into her care, though." He kept his voice as soft as possible in order to avoid pricking Daryl's hair trigger temper. "She's also got Jackson she's decided to raise."

Daryl merely made a  _Tt_ sound. "And?" He glanced at him. "What's that got to do with anythin'?"

"It means that Jackson is also a part of the package. She's raising him the same as she's raising Bo."

"Think I don't know she's decided to raise Jackson as her own?" Daryl carried the bowl over and set it on the table. "I know she's done decided to raise him as her own."

"Jackson isn't blood kin like Bo is," Rick said gently. "You don't have to agree to raise him."

"Hell, he's practically blood kin," Daryl muttered. "His dad and Boone were best friends. Blood brothers, in fact. Makes him as much family as Bo."

"Daryl, you'll essentially be raising an orphaned boy as your own." Rick turned Judith and reached for his coffee mug. "You need to be sure that you want to take on that responsibility."

"Yeah, I know I would be raisin' him as my own." He fixed Rick with a penetrating stare. "You ever stop to think that maybe I  _wanna_  raise him and Bo as my own?"

Before Rick could reply, Judith reached up to pat his face with hands that were covered in the sticky gray goop that had been her breakfast. He heard Daryl snort a laugh and flashed him a small smile.

"Just you wait. He's gonna get you with that applesauce."

"Hell he is," Daryl muttered as he got the giggling toddler situated in the high chair. He was about to take a seat in a chair when Bo grabbed at the bowl he had set on the table. "Oh, no, you ain't," Daryl said as he quickly moved the bowl out of the toddler's reach. "You ain't gonna dump this stuff all over yourself like Little Ass Kicker there did."

Bo and Judith both just giggled. It was a clear and distinct warning about toddler mischief was in the air. Rick just grinned as Daryl heaved a sigh.

"Might wanna move that bowl farther out of his reach," he suggested. "Not unless you want to have it dumped all over."

"He ain't dumpin' this crap out," Daryl retorted as he took a seat. "He's eatin' it and that's that."

"What?" he kidded him. "Don't you want to give Bo a bath?"

"No, bath," came Judith and Bo's automatic responses.

"Yes, bath," Rick informed his daughter. "You're covered in oatmeal."

"No, daddy," Judith stated emphatically. "No, bath."

Daryl snorted a laugh as he started to feed Bo.

"Apparently she likes bein' covered in her breakfast."

"Just you wait," Rick warned. "Bo is gonna need a bath after he finishes his breakfast."

Daryl spooned more of the applesauce into Bo's opening mouth.

"Yeah, well, Kat can give him his bath."

Bo looked at Daryl and said as calm as could be, "No. No, bath."

Rick smiled at Daryl over the rim of his coffee cup.

"Welcome to the  _no_  club."

Daryl merely grunted. "Ain't a participating member of that club," he replied. "Kid needs a bath, he gonna get a bath. Just like Little Ass Kicker there."

"No," both toddlers replied in unison. "No, bath."

"Yes," both men replied. "Yes, bath."

 


	14. Chapter 14

Kat woke up much later than was her usual. A big reason for that, she could readily admit, was because she had been beyond exhausted. However, a good deal of it also had to do with the fact that she had not spent another night sleeping without Daryl there beside her. It had been a great long while since she hadn't been afraid to close her eyes and allow herself to  _actually_  sleep. Keeping an eye on Jo, ensuring that someone got up with Bo, watching out for hordes of the infected, comforting Jackson when he awoke from one of his nightmares, it all had fallen on her shoulders to handle.

She had stepped up as their leader and it was on her to make sure they survived. Getting a full nights sleep was something she reckoned ought to be treasured.  _And celebrated_ , she thought, a lazy smile tugging at her lips. Spending the morning in bed wasn't something she could convince Daryl to do all that often. Getting him to stay in bed those times where he had more than a head cold had been three times more painful than when her wisdom teeth got pulled. He simply wasn't a man accustomed to wasting daylight hours by staying in bed. However...

_We've never actually been apart this long before_...

Feeling like the cat about to play with her favorite toy, Kat stretched, fully anticipating the feel of Daryl along the length of her back. She froze when she realized she was alone in the bed.  _Where is he_? she found herself wondering. She looked over her shoulder and saw the opposite side of the bed was not only empty, but that the covers had been neatly straightened, as well. A frown knit her brow.  _How late has it gotten it to be_? She glanced at the boarded up window in order to figure out what time it was. The position of the sun said that it couldn't be more than late morning at most. Considering how none of them got to bed until the sky started to turn crimsom...

"Daryl?" she called out in a voice still thick with sleep. "Honey, where you at?"

There was no forthcoming response. That, in and of itself, did not surprise Kat any.  _Silent_  and  _Daryl Dixon_  went together about as well as strawberries and whip cream. What did surprise her, though, was how _vacant_  the room suddenly felt. A quick look revealed Bo also missing from his bed.  _Did he wake up early_? she wondered as she slowly sat up.  _And did Daryl hear him moving about and decide to get up with him?_ It wasn't unreasonable that he would have done so. When she used to babysit Boone's boys he would regularly get up before they did, give them their breakfast, pack up the lunches she made the night before and get them off to school.  _And he did it all just so I could snatch an hours more sleep._

A silly grin tugged at her lips, but quickly disappeared when a slippery sly voice whispered to her about how all this could be something created out of her grief and sorrow. Kat shook her head.  _No,_ _I didn't dream Daryl,_ she thought as she ran a hand over the covers on the opposite side of the bed.  _I just know I didn't._ However, the cold blankets against her palm and the slimy doubt doing jumping jacks in her belly told her a different story. Her heart plummeted into her stomach. Tears welled, but she swallowed them back. She was not gonna cry. However, one lone tear streaked a path down her frozen cheek, pooling at her trembling mouth. She reached up to wipe her face, but stopped when she spied Daryl's crossbow sitting beside her bow on the dresser drawer they had turned into a makeshift nightstand. Relief flooded her system in an icy stream, smacking away the ugly creatures whispering all sorts of mean things to her. She was acting ridiculous. She wasn't the kind of woman who fell to pieces all because her man wasn't there beside her when she woke up.  _There's been plenty of times where you stayed home while he went off with Merle. Times,_ she silently chastised herself, where he had been gone for weeks at a time _._ So what was she getting so worked up over him not being beside her now for? She shook her head.

"Plum getting sentimental in your old age, girlie," she heard Merle rasp.

_Yeah, I know I am._

"Git your ass up outta that bed," he grumbled. "Ain't no time to be layin' about. Got shit to do."

_Get bent, Merle_ , she told him as she tossed the covers off and got to her feet.

"Don't you be sassin' me none."

That she essentially was having a conversation with the  _dead_  Merle didn't come as no surprise to Kat. Whenever she needed a kick in the backside, it was Merle she imagined as the one giving it to her. No matter how complicated their relationship might have been, or as combative as it could get, Merle was still by and large her brother-in-law. There was a  _thunk_  as something heavy and metallic landed upon the wood floor. Kat instantly glanced down, her brow furrowed as she wondered what fell. Curiosity gave way to surprise when she saw the ring resting by her big toe.

"Oh," she breathed out as she bent to pick the ring up. "Oh, honey... you kept this all this time, didn't you?"

It was the only piece of jewelry she owned, the one thing he bought her that wasn't a necessity. She turned the right, watching as the one perfectly round citrine stone surrounded on both sides by three small diamonds set in a silver band winked in a beam of sunlight.  _His birthstone and mine_ , she thought as her eyes misted. Daryl had given her the ring back when their lives and everything in it had made a whole lot more sense. There had been no such thing as walkers, or having to claw out whatever meager existence they could by looting people's homes and rooting through abandoned grocery stores for whatever might be left. The only  _real_  worry they had had was about what they where they were gonna live, how they were gonna make ends meet and whether or not fixing his old pick-up was worth the time and money. Back then, they had just been two dumb kids with only the vastness of the future staring them in the face.  _A future_ , she recalled as she closed her fingers around the ring,  _and each other_...

...

**Twenty-two years ago**...

"Why are you surprised that Merle has gone and gotten himself arrested?" Only to herself did she add,  _again_. "Honey, we both know that whenever that phone rings in the middle of the night that it's gonna be him."

His eyes flicked to her, dark and stormy with a tidal wave of thoughts and emotions she knew he would never admit to thinking and feeling. "Yeah, and?"

"Daryl," she spoke as gently as she could, but there was a firmness to her tone that said she wasn't going to take no guff off him for what she was about to say. "The only time Merle ever calls is when he either needs you to go and get him from the county jail or whenever he's wantin' you to go off with him somewhere."

_And whenever you do go off with him_ , she told him silently,  _you always come back even more emotionally withdrawn and screwed up than you already are_. She kept that to herself, however. There was only so much that even she was allowed to say to him in regards to his brother.

"I ain't surprised his dumb ass went and got arrested again," Daryl replied finally on a long, drawn out sigh. "Hell, I'm used to him bein' in jail more'n he is out."

It was an accurate statement, Kat realized with a start _. How many arrests does this one actually make_? she found herself wondering.  _Ten? Eleven_? She couldn't rightly recall. There had been so damn many arrests in the last year that it was more of a surprise when he didn't call up to say he got picked up and needed money for bail. Nor did it come as any shock that this was another arrest for drunk and disorderly conduct. When Merle wasn't getting busted for assaulting someone physically, he was either breaking and entering into places he shouldn't be, or pulling shady scams on disabled or elderly people. She sighed as she got up and walked over to him.

"Daryl, haven't you figured out that Merle just don't know what to do with himself?" She saw him cut a look at her from the corner of his eye, but ignored the warning. They both knew he wouldn't do anything more than growl at her. "Honey, your brother gets in trouble because it's the only God blessed thing he  _thinks_  he's actually good at."

Only to herself did she say,  _And that's because your daddy is a class A asshole who never taught either of you that you're more than just his outlet for whatever bee just so happened to crawl into his bonnet._

"Hell," he muttered as he reached into his tool kit for some fancy doohickey that Kat thought resembled something a doctor would use to examine a patient. "I know Merle gets in trouble just 'cause he don't know no better." He set around to taking off the assembly to something or other. Kat imagined he was trying to put together how exactly he wanted to phrase whatever it was that he wanted to say. Finally, he grumbled, "Don't mean he's just some dumb hillbilly, though," beneath his breath before going back to loosening the nut on what she assumed might have been the housing encasing the engine.

"You're right." She began to rub his tense shoulders in slow, soothing circles. "It don't mean he's just some dumb hillbilly." She glanced at his face. "Why you thinkin' it does?"

"Don't worry about it."

Kat took a moment to remind herself about how  _stubborn_  and  _Daryl Dixon_  went together about as well as  _peanut butter_  and  _chocolate_. He wasn't gonna just up and tell her what was buggin' him. Shit no, not _her_  Rambo. No, Mr. Ornery was gonna make her work for the answers. Just like he always did. A small grin tugged at her lips. She wouldn't have him, or it, any other way.

"Are you still stewin' over what Tyler Hicks said to you the other day at the flea market?" She squeezed his shoulders. "Daryl, you know that if'n that boys brains were dynamite that he wouldn't be able to blow his nose."

He snorted a laugh before saying, "I ain't stewin' over what that dumb shit said."

He was fit to be tied about something, though, and they both knew it. Kat set her mind to finding out what the  _something_  was and fixing it.

"Honey, what's botherin' you?" she asked him gently. "Tell me, please?"

"I said not to worry about it," he said in that dark rasp that Kat knew he used whenever he didn't want to talk about a particular topic with her. She swallowed a sigh and sat down behind him, heedless of the oil and dirt that stained the concrete, and slid her hands down his arms into his grease covered ones.

"Daryl, I know you've been fit to be tied about somethin' the last few weeks," she said in her most reasonable tone. "And I can't help if'n I ain't got no idea 'bout what's stickin' in your craw. Now, what is it?"

She felt more than heard his sigh. "I swear you chirp more than a buncha damn blue jays," he grumbled without any real heat to his voice. "Swear you talk just because you love hearin' yourself yap."

"I do not!" She smacked his shoulder with the heel of her right hand. "You take that back or else!"

"What you gonna do about it?" He sent a smirk over his shoulder. "What I thought."

Kat pulled a him and rolled her eyes.

"Why can't you just tell me about what's got your boxers all tied up in a bunch?" she demanded. "Why you gotta be so damned ornery?"

"Why you gotta harp?" he countered. "Why can't you just let it alone? Like," he added before she could say the words that were just hanging upon the edge of her tongue, "I asked?"

"If'n you'd just tell me why you're being such a moodier ass than usual, I'd stop harpin' about it."

"No, you'll just harp more," he said in a voice that she thought had a suspicious note of mirth to it. "You ain't happy unless you're goin' on about somethin' or other."

She harrumphed at that. "Would you just tell me about what bug has crawled up your damned tailpipe?"

"Kat," he said in a dead serious voice now. "I said to not worry about it."

Why he even bothered to tell her that, and in that voice, she didn't know. He knew she was gonna worry about him. She always worried about him. It was her mission in life to worry about him. And he really should have known she was worrying when she came out here to talk with him. "Daryl-" she began, but he cut her off.

"Not another word about it, Katherine."

Kat sighed and gave up, knowing he would tell her in his own time about whatever it was that was making him act this way. She watched as he resumed dismantling an old motorcycle for spare parts. A warm breeze was blowing, stirring the hem of her skirt and ruffling the shorter strands of hair that were hanging by her temple. She could smell rain, over the scents of gasoline and motor oil and man; she could smell that clean scent that was the rain.

"Gonna storm within the hour," she predicted. She gestured the clouds creeping black across the sky. "Look. You can see how fat and heavy they are. Good thing, too. We need the rain." Seconds later, as if she'd commanded it, a pale jag of lightning cracked the steel mirror of sky. Kat swallowed. "Aha," she said weakly. "Well, wasn't expectin' that lightin' was gonna be part of the storm package, though."

He glanced at her, an unholy light in his eyes. "You gonna turn every light on in the house?" His lips twitched when she flicked his ear with her finger. "Or you just gonna turn the radio up like last time?"

She couldn't help, but snort a laugh. "Hush up," she ordered playfully, "or I won't bake you that apple pie you been hintin' around about."

He made a  _ttch_  sound. "You done baked me that pie this morning." His lips kicked up at the corners. "The smell is what woke me outta a sound sleep."

Kat rest her chin upon his shoulder and chuckled. "Swear you are more coonhound than Blue is."

"You best not be givin' him any of that pie," he mock growled at her. "There's gonna be hell to pay if'n you do."

She snorted. "Oh, really?" One eyebrow lifted into a perfect arch. "And what you gonna do if'n I do? Huh?"

He reached back and swept his greasy thumb over her cheek. "Just you wait and see."

At her disgruntled sigh, he smiled.  _Well, a smile for him_ ,  _at least_ , she corrected as she snagged a rag from his back pocket. A small black box toppled out onto the garage floor and Kat picked it up before Daryl could snatch it away from her.

"What's this?" She eyed the box and then him curiously. His expression relaxed into a kind of intense concentration, almost like a sense of doubt. Kat waited for him to respond to her question, but he remained dead silent, his eyes on hers. "Daryl? What is this?"

"Well, go ahead and open the damned thing." Clearly uncomfortable at having the box discovered, he busied himself with wiping grease off his hands with the rag she'd proliferated for her own use. "Was gonna give it to you for Christmas anyway."

Her heart stopped as she opened the box. It was the ring she had shown Jo in the Sears catalogue. Somehow, Daryl heard how she wanted it and... "Is this why you've been workin' three jobs lately?" she asked him as realization dawned. "'Cause you been payin' for this?"

He didn't do anything more than nod.

"Oh, honey." Even as her heart turned to putty, her stomach jumped. "I don't even know what to say right now."

"Shit," he smirked. "If I thought buyin' you a ring was all it would take to shut your pie hole..."

"Hush you," she ordered as she slid into his lap. "And c'mere so I can thank you properly."

For once, Daryl did exactly what she asked him too. The way Kat figured it? It was his way of trying to express his feelings, to show he was open to giving them a chance, to making an honest attempt at building some type of actual life with her.

_And that_? Kat thought as she rubbed her lips over his, stirring them both.  _That was more than okay with her_.

...

Kat continued staring at the ring in her hand long after the memory faded. The only time she had ever taken the ring off had been after she sprained her ring and pinky fingers while evacuating to Atlanta. She'd given the ring to Daryl to hold onto. That he had kept it, and for all these years, told her how much the ring still meant to him.  _It's still_   _his way of expressin' his feelings_. It was all the proof she needed to know he was sincere about giving them a real chance. That he wanted to make an honest attempt at building some type of a life with her inside this nightmare they were now living was more'n fine with her. However, she didn't come alone now. There was Bo and Jackson who needed to be taken into consideration, as well.  _Will he want to help raise them_? she wondered, a frown darkening her brow.

"Now wait a damned minute here, girlie," Merle barked. "Didn't my little brother up and tell your ass last night about how he wanted y'all to be a family?"

Kat glanced over her shoulder, half-expecting to see Merle standing there with that shit-eating grin she always found so irritating upon his face. Merle wasn't there, of course. He would never be there again, in fact. However, that didn't stop her from saying, "Yeah, that's what he said. What about it?" back to him.

"Thinkin' he done gave you your answer at that time, sugar plum," came his reply. "You just ain't listenin' to him."

"That's cause he didn't tell me anyt-"

"He done told you what he wants to do without comin' out and directly sayin' shit, toots," he cut in gruffly. "Just like your ass been doin' to him for all these goddamned years.'

_Well, now ain't that somethin'?_ Kat mused as she slid the ring onto her finger. It still fit perfectly.  _And that man has the balls to harp at me because I tend to say shit without directly sayin' it_?  _Well, I'll fix that right damned now..._

A silly grin tugged at her lips as she left the room in order to search for her surly-tempered mate in order to tell him what was what once and for all.

 


	15. Chapter 15

"We're gonna have to discuss makin' a run or somethin' in the next few days," Daryl told Rick as he fed Bo another spoonful of the applesauce. "Supplies are startin' to get pretty low."

Rick gave a short, almost imperceptible nod of his head. "Yeah, I know things are getting pretty tight supply wise. But," he extolled on one long and heavy breath, "things are slim out there now, too. Not sure what we'll manage to find at this point." He lifted his mug; paused in the middle of tilting it. "If we can even manage to find anything," he muttered before draining the last vestiges of coffee from the cup.

Daryl heaved a sigh that was equally as heavy as his own had been. Rick took it as he knew the other man meant it: a silent acknowledgement about how hard it was getting to locate food that was even remotely edible. Store shelves had been picked clean months ago. Most of the houses they had come across in the past few weeks had been nearly emptied of whatever provisions their former owners had laid in while trying to wait out the worst of the apocalypse. Most of what was left now was not even fit for the roaches that somehow managed to thrive. Rick felt the weight of responsibility settling heavily upon him. It was up to him to see that they made it. He was still the group's  _acting_  leader.

_And I'm doing a piss poor job of it_ , he thought as his belly twisted into greasy knots smothered in deep-fried guilt. Their current predicament was ultimately his fault.  _Well, mine and the residents of Alexandria_ , he silently corrected. However, the majority of the blame for what had happened was squarely upon his shoulders. He was the one who told everybody that they would take Alexandria and make it theirs if nends be.

He was the one who promised that they wouldn't have to keep moving from location to location anymore. He told them that they would make the city safe and secure. He told them they would finally be able to start living their lives again now that they had found the city. Yet here they were, all these months later, miles away from what was supposed to have been the promise land and without another similarly built sanctuary anywhere in sight.  _If I don't figure out what to do soon..._ he allowed the thought to trail off _._ It wasn't like it was something he had to  _really_  think long and hard about.

He, same as everybody else, knew they were barely making it. It was mid-summer now. Without a steady source of food and water they wouldn't make it through the hottest months, much less the rapidly approaching winter. Those knots in his belly suddenly became tennis balls being bounced around by hands born of guilt and regret. Sweat ran cold and clammy over his skin, and he could feel the swell of a grand headache forming behind his eyes. His belly cramped and for a moment he thought he was going to be sick. He bore down, however, hammered back the nausea and the sea of emotions trying to suck him down into the toxic void that waited for him. It was a hard fought battle.

When he finally felt confident that he wouldn't humiliate himself, he said, "We are going to have to figure out how to obtain a steady source of food or we won't make it to winter."

Daryl must have sensed his hypertensive state because he said, "I'll go set out some snares after Kat gets up," while scraping the last of the applesauce from off the sides of the bowl. "See if I can't catch some small game or somethin'." Bo giggled and reached for the nearly empty bowl, but Daryl smirked and quickly moved it out of the toddlers reach. "Creek nearby might have some catfish or bass in it that'll help keep everyone fed while we figure shit out."

"All right," Rick managed around that woolen thing called his tongue. "Sounds like about as good a plan as any at the moment." Then he paused; considered. "You know you won't be going out there alone, right?" His eyes met Daryl's. "Kat is going to-"

"...keep her ass here," Daryl stated in one long raspy breath. "And worry about takin' care of the rugrats."

Rick's eyebrows shot up in spite of having already guessed that that was likely going to be the man's response about Kat going out with him. However, he knew that Daryl wasn't keeping her home because he didn't want her going along with him. He could see the man almost vibrated with the want; need to take Kat on a hunting trip with him.  _No_ , he amended a second later.  _He doesn't want to go_ hunting _with her. He just wants to be alone with her_.

If not for the precariousness of the group's situation, he might have kidded Daryl about wanting to sneak off for some alone time with Kat. Not that he could rightly blame the man for wanting to be alone with her. Two years was a long time for two people to spend apart. Just the few months he had been separated from Lori had been hell. He couldn't begin to imagine the torture Daryl and Kat had gone through.

_And it's not like they got much time together last night what with the walkers on our doorstep_...

And that he suspected was part of Daryl's reasoning for why he was making her stay home with Bo and Jackson. Protecting. Providing. It all came down to how he had been raised to believe that a man acted, to what things he'd been taught was a man's to do and the examples he'd been given as to how a man accomplished those things. His own father had taught him that a man protected his family; that he provided for them by doing whatever it took. He was sure that that wasn't all that far different from what Daryl had been brought up to think and believe.

Besides that, being the protector; the provider was what Daryl knew how to be. It was the comfort found in the familiarity, the security of fulfilling a role which he knew he was best suited to play because he already spent the majority of his life playing it.  _It is the small bit of normal that still manages to exist inside this abnormal life we are being forced to now live_. He could understand that want; that need for normalcy. He wanted that small bit of normal for himself and his kids.  _I want to find that small bit of normal for all of us_ , he thought as he watched Judith play with her blocks on the floor.  _We need it. Hell,_ he thought now, _we've more than earned it_.

However, if Rick wanted to be honest,  _really_  honest, he would admit that Kat staying home with the kids made him relax a bit as well. It was what he would choose if he was being asked his thoughts and opinions. He had no problem in admitting that if he were in Daryl's shoes, and it Lori they were discussing going along with him on a food run that he would order her to remain at home with Carl and Judith. He would be just as overprotective as Daryl was being. However, Rick was also wise enough to recognize that Kat wasn't the sort of woman to meekly stand on the front porch, a baby on her hip, another at her side and wave bye-bye as the men went off to hunt and forage for supplies. No, she was the type of woman who would nominate herself as one of those to go and rationalize why she should by pointing out how they all needed to work together in order to ensure that the group got what it needed.

_She's a hunter_ , he reminded Daryl silently.  _It's what you taught her to be. You can't take that away from her now._ Phrasing that in a way that would not end up with him and Daryl getting into a heated argument? Well that was proving difficult. No matter how close the two of them had gotten in the last few years, no matter that they had an open line of communication between them that allowed them to tell the other the truth-even if they did not want to hear said truth at the time it was spoken, there was still a line about family that they both knew never to cross. Rick knew he was about to step on that line with what he was about to say to him.  _It needs to be said, though_ , he decided with a soft sigh. And he figured that made him the asshole that needed to say it. Before he could, he felt a tug on his hand and looked down to see Judith holding her arms out to him.

"Daddy, up?" she lisped with a toothsome grin. "Pease?"

He obliged by scooping her up and settling her in his lap. "Happy?"

"Yes," she stated with a prim nod of her head. A grin tugged at Rick's lips.

"Yes, what?" He tickled her sides. "What are you supposed to say after someone helps you? Huh?"

Judith giggled wildly and shoved at his hands with hers. "Stop, daddy!" she ordered shrilly.

"Okay," he chuckled as he stopped. "That better?"

"Yes," she said. She looked up at him, an impish grin curving her kewpie doll lips that settled and soothed his strained nerves. "Water, pease?"

He handed her the sippy cup before glancing over at Daryl.

"I'm thinking that you need to take up with Kat about her not going with you. She's not likely going to understand why you want her to remain here with the kids rather than with you." He saw Daryl's face darken and figured that the man was about to tell him to mind his own goddamned business. However, when he said nothing, Rick pressed on, adding, "You need time alone. Shit," he said with feeling. "You both deserve it after what all you have gone through."

"Ain't about what she or I need," Daryl grumbled as he lifted Bo into his arms. "Kids need their mother."

_What about needing their father_? was what Rick wanted to ask him.  _Don't you realize that they are going to need you as much as they need her?_ He didn't ask him either of those things, however. He knew that he was pushing the boundaries enough as it was.

"You taught Kat the skills she needed in order for her to keep herself and the kids alive while you two were apart. And she did a helluva job considering how firmly the odds were against her. Don't ask her to take a step back now."

"Ain't about that."

Rick decided to be blunt. "Then what is it about?"

Daryl flashed him a warning look. "It's nothin' you needs be concernin' yourself over."

Rick knew right then that he should change the subject. He knew that he should have just left it at that. But there was something inside him telling him to press his luck.

"I know you want to take Kat hunting with you," he said slowly. "I can see you are sitting over there and almost twitching with the want; need to take her with you. So tell me, brother..." he grinned. "Why do you want her to stay here when you clearly want her going with you?"

Daryl made a faint rumbling sound in his throat, as if he was getting ready to tell him to shut the fuck up, but he cut it short and busied himself by cleaning the remnants of Bo's breakfast from his face with a damp rag. If anything, he just looked completely disconcerted. Again Rick was reminded about how Daryl had been raised in a house of violence, where things like emotions had been kept in small jars wrapped in chains, and wants and needs never spoken aloud for fear of physical or emotional retaliation.

"I ain't gonna lose her," he finally said in a voice that throbbed with an intensity of emotions that Rick understood all too well. "Not like she lost Jolene." He lifted haunted eyes to Rick's. "Not like I lost Merle."

_So that's it_ , Rick thought.  _It's about the unthinkable_. It was always going to be about the unthinkable, he realized. It was the binding that tied them all together. It was what united them as family.  _As terrible as that is_ , he mused sadly. There was nothing, nothing at all in Rick's opinion that could be quite as emotionally crippling as being forced into taking the life of someone you loved. The simple thought of having to shoot Judith and Carl in the way that Daryl and Kat had been forced to shoot their own family caused his belly to twist again into hard knots, his heart to skip a beat and his brain to completely shut down. It was unconscionable how this world—this despicable and disgusting fucking world, could require anybody to make such a horrendous decision. Yet it had. This cold, cruel and hateful world that had already taken so damn much from all of them already had demanded they do the unthinkable in order to survive.

_And he doesn't want to give the world a chance to demand that he do the unthinkable again..._

That was the real reason for why he wanted Kat to remain with Bo and Jackson. He was afraid that something would happen, that she'd get bitten, that she'd turn and he'd have to do to her what he had done to his brother.  _I get it,_  he told him silently.  _I get what you're afraid of. I understand_. However, before he could tell Daryl that there was a sigh, followed by Kat saying, "You ain't gonna lose me, you mule-headed moron." They both glanced over to see her standing in the open doorway, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes like flint. Exactly how long she'd been standing there, Rick didn't know. She clearly heard enough of the conversation to have gotten the gist of it and was fit to be tied about it. "No more'n I'm gonna be losin' your ornery ass."

"Look who is callin' who a mule here," Daryl retorted as Bo held his arms out and babbled happily. "It's the damned pot."

"That's 'cause there ain't nobody, but the pot who is gonna tell your dumb ass what's what." She swept Bo up into her arms before fixing Daryl with a look that made Rick squirm. "And what's what is that you ain't leavin' my ass home just 'cause you got some damned fool notion in your head sayin' Bo and Jackson need me more'n they need you. That's crap and you know it, Daryl."

Daryl fixed her with a look that positively burned with intensity.

"Kids need their mother."

Kat sniffed, once. "They do, huh? Well, guess what, darlin'," she bit out between clenched teeth. "Our kids need their daddy, too."

"This ain't up for debate, Kat," Daryl told her in that whiskey rough tone Rick knew he used whenever he didn't want to talk about something. "Your ass is stayin' here with them."

"That's what you think," Kat growled right back at him. "This-"

"I said hush up about it."

The ripple of temper in Daryl's voice; upon his face warned Rick that a fight was about to ensue between the two. And while a perverse side of him wanted to see just who the winner would be in an all-out argument between them, he didn't think now was a good time for them to be having it. Not when they were both raw emotionally and looking to vent some of the toxic emotions they had locked up inside. He was about to suggest that they take a step back when Judith cried out, "Kat!" excitedly while clapping her hands. "Kat! Kat! Kat!"

Kat took a minute to reach over and cup Judith's cheek in her palm. "Mornin', angel," she said with a warm smile. She flicked eyes that were still stormy to Rick's before adding, "Enjoyed your breakfast, I see."

"Bath?" Judith asked in a voice that could have melted a heart encased in a block of ice. "Pease?"

Rick heaved a sigh before glancing down at his capricious daughter.

"So," he drawled lazily. "I say you need a bath and it's 'no, daddy.' But Kat shows up and suddenly you decide that you want a bath?"

"Yes," was Judith's giggled reply. Then she looked again at Kat and repeated her want. "Bath, pease?"

"Of course, sugar," Kat sent an amused look at Rick. "You can have a bath."

"She could have had a bath ten minutes ago," Rick grumbled. "She kept saying no."

"'Cause you told Little Ass Kicker that she was gonna get a bath whether she wanted one or not," Daryl pointed out with a smirk. "Different when she's askin' for it."

"Well, if she's asking for a bath," he said as he stood up. "Then a bath she shall have."

Judith realized instantly what he meant by those words.

"No!" She protested, loudly. "No bath, daddy!"

"You asked for a bath," Rick replied as he started from the room. "So a bath is what you are going to get."

"No!" she repeated. "Daddy, no! No bath!"

"Judith, yes. Yes, bath."

Judith tried to wriggle free from his arms. "Kat?" she called out when she wasn't able to free herself. "Kat?"

"Kat's busy."

Instantly, the two-year-old switched "Daryl?"

"He's busy with Kat."

"Carl?" she asked in a small, hopeful sounding voice.

"He's still in bed."

Whoever else that the little girl might have tried to call to her defense was muted by the closing of the bedroom door. Kat looked at Bo, a wry grin tugging at her lips. "You got anythin' to say here?"

"Bath?" A quiet smile flitted across the boys lips. "Pease?"

"Thinkin' your daddy can give you your bath." She bussed his cheek while glancing sideways at Daryl. "If'n he thinks he's up for the challenge, that is."

"Shit," Daryl muttered. "Let him swim in the damn creek. Same as takin' a bath. And it's more damn fun."

"That not only requires going to the creek," she pointed out, "but him also learnin' how to swim."

He sniffed upon hearing that. "Then I'll take you 'n him to the damn creek."

"So..." Kat said after a few minutes. "Does this mean that we done fightin'?"

"Weren't fightin' about it." He smirked as she muttered a few things beneath her breath. "Ain't somethin' that was worth gettin' in a fight over."

"You were sure gettin' all het up for someone who wasn't arguin' about it."

He reached out and snagged her hand, pulled her down into his lap. "I was gettin' het up 'cause you refuse to keep your stubborn ass here."

"'Cause I want to be with you, you jack ass."

"And I want you where I know you're safe," he countered in a gruff voice, "and takin' care of Jackson and the squirt there."

Kat heaved a sigh as she cuddled Bo close. "Honey, we can't spend our lives tryin' to hide from big daddy Reaper. He gonna come no matter what all we say and do."

"I ain't losin' you and that's that."

"Oh, well, on that we're in perfect agreement." She lowered her mouth to his. "'Cause I ain't losin' your dumb ass, either."

 


	16. Chapter 16

"This reminds me of that small creek near where we grew up," Kat mused a short time later. "Ain't no signs posted anywhere around here sayin' there ain't no fishin' or swimmin' allowed. Not," she added with a touch of fondness in her voice, "that either you or James Michael ever paid one damned bit of attention to any of those signs."

Hearing Kat say her younger brothers name snagged his attention quicker than a scalded haint could run. It had been years since either of them had talked about James Michael. He told himself that he really shouldn't be surprised to learn that she'd been sitting there and thinking about her brothers. It made complete sense that her thoughts would be upon her brothers after what all went down with Jolene. Hell, he would have been more shocked to learn she _wasn't_ thinking about Boone and James Michael really. _Shit, my ass been sittin' here and thinkin' about Merle_ , he thought as he baited the hook on a fishing pole Carl and Jackson had found out in an old shed. _Why the hell shouldn't she be thinkin' about hers_?

Daryl looked up, studying her face for a moment. Nothing showed but for a somber wistfulness. A breeze stirred the ends of her hair. She'd tied her hair back, his only complaint about her appearance that morning. He liked it best when she left it wild and loose, but the binding kept the silken strands from blowing into her face or getting snagged on the bow she had brought with her. He'd like to run his fingers beneath the spill of hair, beneath the soft, thin fabric of the shirt she had put on, to the small of her back. He didn't touch her, though. He didn't dare. Not when Jackson and Carl were just below with Bo and Little Ass Kicker. He went back to baiting the hook to keep himself from indulging his want.

"Honey?" He heard her say in a tone that contained more than a thin note of concern in it. "You a'ight?"

"Hm? What?" He glanced at her. "You say somethin'?"

He knew what she said. He had heard every blessed word of it. He just didn't know how to reply without dredging up shit that didn't need to be brought up. Hell, he was already feeling lower than a scalded hound for having caused her to lose her moderately good mood.

"I asked if you were okay?"

Damn, he hadn't thought he had been that deep inside his own bullshit. He shook himself in order to clear the crud stinkin' up his head before mumbling, "Mhm." He set the first pole to the side and reached for the makeshift one he'd made out of a small branch and some spare twine he had in his pack. "Gotta be."

"You sure?" Her tone was as suspicious as the look she gave him. "'Cause you done got that moody look on your face that says you're internalizin' something or other."

He checked to make sure the hook was secured to the line he had tied to the end of the stick before grumbling at her, "Don't worry about it."

"Yeah," sarcasm dripped off her tongue like melted butter. "Orderin' me _not_ to worry is sure what works to keep me from worryin'..."

He made a low hum deep in his throat before saying, "You ain't happy unless you're going' on about somethin', are you?"

"Daryl," she said quietly. "What's goin' on?" Her hand curled around his bicep, warm and comforting. "Tell me, please?"

Why he even had bothered with telling her not to worry was beyond him. Forty-some-odd years with her should have told him that the simplest route was to tell her ass what he was thinking and leave it at that. _Think I woulda learned this by now_ , he thought as he heaved a sigh. _Dumb shit that I am, I keep tryin' to play hardball with her._

"It's nothin'," he spoke the words in the weary way of a man who knew he was wasting his breath. "I was just thinkin' is all."

"About how stubborn your ass is?" She flashed him a playful grin. "Or about how you tend to ignore signs that tell you _don't_ do somethin'?"

He made a _ttch_ sound. "My ass pays plenty of attention to signs that warn me about how it could get a thousand bolts of electricity shot into it."

Kat's lips twitched. "That's 'cause your dumb ass has no choice _but_ to pay attention to signs warnin' that it could get shocked. Them lightnin' bolts zappin' a fake person make it pretty clear for even someone as hard-headed as you to know what the consequences would be for being stupid."

"There you go," he sighed. "Talkin' for the sake of talkin'."

"It's just me talkin' for the sake of talkin' 'cause I'm remindin' you about what an ornery and stubborn cuss you could be as a kid." She sent him a look full of deviltry. "Admit it."

He glanced at her, a smirk screwing up one side of his mouth. "Look at the pot callin' the kettle black."

"Well, kettle..." she teased. "Truth hurts, don't it?"

"Would you hush up, woman."

"Make me," she taunted in a sing-song voice. "If'n ya ain't scared."

He sniffed and went to cover her mouth with his hand, but she tilted her head away and stuck her tongue out at him. He just shook his head. "You're gonna scare off the fish with all that yappin' you're doin'."

"That's right," she said on what Daryl thought suspiciously sounded like a giggle, "blame your inability to catch a fish on me. Ain't 'cause the fish don't trust that worm you tryin' to feed 'em. Hell no."

"Ain't the worm they scared of," he told her. "It's all that chirpin' they hearin'. Makes 'em think a bird is up here and just waitin' to snatch 'em up if they poke their heads out of the water."

One brow lifted. "Is that so?" she drawled in that honeyed tone that always curled his toes. "And what's gonna be your excuse when them snares come up empty, huh? I spooked the critters back into hidin' by talkin'?"

"Yup." He snorted a laugh when her finger flicked his ear. "You tend to scare off fish and game whenever you open your mouth and make a sound."

She tugged on his earlobe for that bit of sass. "Bullshit," she groused. "That is plain and simple bullshit."

He bent an amused look upon her before saying, "Your yappin' cost me that twenty-pointer on our last huntin' trip."

She rolled her eyes and harrumphed at that. "Daryl," she huffed. "That ain't what happened and you damn well know it."

"You damned sure know it's exactly what happened."

"Oh, do I?" she huffed. "Well, now, pray tell, how exactly did I cost you Bambi's father? Huh?"

He settled back against the trunk of a tree and slung his arm around her. "Told your ass to be quiet and the first thing you did was set off flappin' your gums about wantin' to change the curtains in our bedroom. Scared him straight off."

"Your memory has gotten dodgy with your old age," she countered with a smirk. "'Cause I remember that you stepped on a damned twig and that that was what spooked him away."

"Like hell," he grumbled, not amused now. "Didn't step on no twig. It was you yappin' at me about curtains or some other dumb thing that made him run off."

"Whatever helps to soothe your clearly fragile ego, Rambo," she teased. "Fact is you spooked off your prize buck and are just blamin' me for it."

He turned a look upon her that was mockingly serious. "You want me to gag you?"

"Gag?" She shook her head. "Nope. But you could try kissin' me." She gave him a saucy wink. "That'll definitely keep me from chatterin' like a bluejay."

"Maybe for all of a minute," he agreed with a smirk. "But we got kids to keep an eye on, so no."

Kat heaved a disgruntled sigh and took the makeshift pole from him. "I knew you only suggested bringin' all of the kids with us just to avoid havin' to kiss me."

"Yup." He snorted a laugh when she kicked him in the ankle. "Hey, quit it."

"No," she huffed. "What you deserve for bein' an ass."

He knew she had meant the words in jest. However, they were the key that was needed to open the lock on the box where he'd stored each and every moment where he had been less than the man she'd needed; deserved him to be. He'd spent the majority of his life following Merle and running away from the life he could have; should have had with her. A life, he realized now, that was again within his grasp. There were times he caught her watching him, quietly, patiently. The waiting look. Each time he caught her looking at him, there was that ripple of guilt, that small niggle of doubt, that voice telling him that he didn't deserve any of it. He told that voice to shut up. He wasn't giving this chance up. No siree bob. There were two kids who needed him to teach them those skills they would need in order to survive. And there was a woman who'd spent her entire life loving him, supporting him, standing by him no matter what who deserved to have something resembling that apple pie life he'd spent the majority of his youth avoiding.

He didn't even know he'd opened his mouth to speak until he heard himself saying, "I'm sorry I ain't been the man you needed me to be."

"The hell?" Kat cut a look at him. "What are you goin' on about now?"

"Nothin'." He busied himself by again checking that the worms he'd baited were securely attached to the fishing hooks. "Just drop it, a'ight?"

Kat wasn't about to let the matter drop, though. Not this time. Not after all the long and lonely nights she'd spent without him, the tears she'd cried because she missed him and the fears she'd hidden because she had needed to be the strong one. And certainly not after the anger she'd felt over the injustice of it all and the pain of not knowing whether he was alive or dead. No way. It was about time they hashed this horse shit out once and for all. With her heart pumping and her blood singing, she tossed the fishing pole aside and rounded to face him.

"Now you listen to me, Daryl Dixon, and you damn well better listen good," she growled as she straddled him. "You've _always_ been the man I needed you to be. You hear me?" She curved her fingers into the buttery folds of his vest. "You've _always_ been the man that I needed you to be. You'll always _be_ the man that I need. You hear me?"

Something stirred in him, something hot and hungry. Something that he'd cut himself off from feeling because it wasn't anything he could allow himself to indulge in. Not while there had been some hope he would manage to find Kat alive and well. If not for the fact they had a potential audience who would bear witness to any public display of affection, he would have said the hell with fishing. He chose to speak in order to keep himself in check.

"Weren't bein' the man you needed me to be when I was runnin' around with Merle and actin' like a dumb shit."

Her eyes glinted like flint. "Is that all you remember 'bout those years?" she ground the words out between her teeth. "Those couple of times where you went off with Merle and got your head messed up? Where you maybe screwed up a bit?"

"That all you seein' it as? Me screwin' up a bit 'cause I went off with Merle and got my head messed up?"

"Yup," she confirmed with a nod. "It is exactly how I'm seeing it."

He sniffed. "I had my head crammed up my ass and you know it."

The way that he said it, that frustrated, verbal explosion triggered memories of previous arguments they had had about this particular subject. It was a discussion they had been having at least once a year since they were thirteen. Again she was reminded about how he'd grown up in a family dominated by physical violence and riddled by buckets of verbal abuse. Will Dixon managed to make her own father seem downright warm and loving. But enough was enough. It was high time he started to see himself as she and damn near everybody who got to know him actually saw him as.

"Yup." She nodded, once, for emphasis. "That is exactly how I am seein' it."

Daryl just shook his head. "You crazier then a buncha squirrels fightin' over an acorn."

"Oh?" she gritted. "And why's that?"

"'Cause we both know I was just some redneck asshole who had an even bigger asshole for a brother."

"Maybe," she allowed with a small sniff. "But you're _my_ redneck asshole, Daryl Dixon. Always have been and you always will be."

"I weren't doin' you no damn bit of good when I was runnin' around with Merle and gettin' piss ass drunk nearly every night."

"You would have come around, Daryl. I know you would have. You would have seen what you were becomin', who you were turnin' into and pulled yourself back before you ended up becomin' him."

"How you know I woulda come around?" he demanded in that dark, rasping voice that Kat well remembered. Daryl had always been a moody creature, though. It was what had drawn her to the boy, and made her love him now as a man. "What makes you so certain I woulda got my head outta my ass? Huh?"

Kat decided it was high time he brought himself around to accepting that the way he saw himself wasn't how she, or any of the others back at the farm for that matter, tended to see him.

"Daryl," she said with as much patience as she could muster. "I have always known what type of man you are." The breath she blew out stirred the hair sticking to his throat. "And I knew you'd never turn into Merle or your father because I knew how much you feared becomin' like either one of 'em."

"Yeah?" He turned his head away in order to check on the kids. He saw Carl and Jackson were skipping rocks across the glistening water to the delight of Judith and Bo. "Then what kind of man was I becomin' then?" He flicked his gaze back to hers. "'Cause I recall I was a nobody before this shit. A nothing."

"Yeah, you were just a nobody." Acid would have been sweeter than her tone at that moment. "You were the nobody who made me run and get Boone while _he_ took a beatin' from Mason Jones and his three moronic brothers. You were the nobody who beat the shit out of my father after he found out he was smackin' me around. You were the nobody who stood up to your own asshole of a brother when he brought drugs into our house. You-"

"Quiet." Goddamn, but she was on a helluva tear. If he didn't shut her up, and now, his every secret would be known to the world. "Hell's gotten into you?"

"No." Kat heard the bite in her voice same as he did, but she didn't bother to soften it. "Not this time, Daryl. I want you to listen to me and hear what it is I'm sayin' for a change. I want the whole goddamn world to hear what I'm sayin', in fact!"

"Kat..." he reached for her but she pushed his hands away. "Damm it, girl-"

"If you are so set on rippin' the lid off this jar, Daryl, have the goddamn guts to pour the contents of the jar on the table and look at 'em for what they are and not for what you've twisted 'em into being." There was the familiar sting of bitterness in the words, and she could taste it even as he did. "I want you to hear what someone who loves you thinks of you. So you hush up and you listen. And you listen good, a'ight?"

He tried to cover her mouth with his hand, but she grabbed it between both her own and held on so tight that he heard her knuckles pop. "You call yourself a nobody, but you can't see that you were the somebody who worked two jobs and God only knows how many stinkin' side jobs just so I could focus on goin' to school. You're the somebody who took a job he damned well hated just so he could buy the ring I showed my brother I wanted. A ring," she added as she held her hand up for his inspection, "you flipped out over when you found out I pawned it in order to get your shithead brother out of jail. But you were just a nobody before the apocalypse." She sniffed, once, eloquently. "A nothin', am I right?"

He watched as a small beam of light hit the ring, causing that amber stone to positively pulsate with heat. He traced his thumb over it, half-surprised when he didn't feel his flesh start to burn. "I should have replaced it with a wedding ring a long ass time ago."

Kat watched his face as he spoke. How well she remembered that dark passion in him, that echo of raw vulnerability and boyish uncertainty. It had drawn her to him even as everybody around her had screamed at her to stay away. And, right or wrong, she had fallen in love with that boy; with this man.

"I got my ring," she informed him in a tone that said she'd hear no more about it. "I don't need, nor do I _want_ another one."

"Still, should have done the deed."

"Well, we can solve that," she said as she lowered her forehead to his. "Do it now."

His breath tickled the hair that had escaped from the clip she'd used. "Ain't no preacher around to marry us."

"Don't need one."

He sniffed. And gave her a look that said he thought she only had one oar in the water. "People can't get married without a preacher to say the words over 'em."

She harrumphed. "Those are just words bein' spoken from outta the Good Book."

"Still proper."

"Maybe." She settled herself more comfortably against him, sighing her content and pleasure. "Ain't like a preacher can say what needs be said for us, anyway. Our words," she said as she skimmed her lips over his temple, his cheek, his lips. "They're promises we're makin' to each other."

He slid his fingers to the back of her neck. "Maybe."

"Ain't no maybe about it," she muttered. "You're just bein' a mule-headed moron and that's all there is to it."

The sound of a hammer cocking stilled whatever he might have said in response to that. Daryl instantly felt every nerve and muscle inside his body ready for an attack. He went to reach for the crossbow on the ground beside but froze when a familiar voice said, "Well, well. What've we got here?"


	17. Chapter 17

"So," Carl said to Jackson while he splashed water onto Judith's bare feet. "Why can't you talk?"

Jackson started, surprised by the question and the brusque tone. It wasn't like Carl had intended to blurt the question out in quite that blunt a fashion, though. Jackson could see by his slight grimace, as well as the faint hint of color that dotted his cheeks that he hadn't intended his question to come out in quite that rude a fashion.

"Uhm," the older teen murmured as he ducked his head and busied himself with the little girl giggling happily between his feet. "Uh, I, uhm, didn't mean," he paused to stop his sister from putting a small rock she'd dug out of the silt into her mouth. "I didn't mean to, uhm, ask you that in that, uh, yanno… way." He shot a furtive look at Jackson from beneath the brim of his brown hat. "It was, uhm-"

Jackson flashed him what he hoped was his most understanding smile and indicated with a wave of his hand that it was okay, that he understood that the older teen hadn't meant to ask him that question in quite the blunt way he had.

"Thanks for understanding." Carl let out a tiny, relieved breath before giving him a small smile. "It's just…" he paused to sweep away a pile of dirty leaves before Judith or Bo could snatch them. "I'm curious about why you can't talk is all. I mean," he added as he glanced quickly at him, "you can talk, right?"

Jackson just gave him a thumbs up to indicate that it was cool, that yes he could talk, and that he knew people were wondering about why he was mute before reaching over to take away a pointy piece of wood that Bo was stabbing at his foot. He figured that was the end of the conversation when Carl didn't press him about why it was that he didn't speak. It wasn't a topic that he was sure that he wanted to get into, not yet, at least.

"If my dad had been here to hear me a minute ago..." he heard Carl say before he trailed off into a long and heavy sigh that told Jackson clearly about how there would have been hell to pay if his daddy had heard him being rude. He flashed a smile at the teen and pointed up to where Kat and Daryl were sitting before making a motion to indicate that there'd have been hell to pay if Kat ever caught him being rude, too.  _Be hell to pay if Daryl ever catches me being disrespectful to someone_ , he realized then. He'd always accepted and understood that Daryl came with Kat. They'd been together since before he was born, were almost always together as he grew up, and were together now— _permanently_.

His memories of Daryl were mostly all positive ones. He'd never spoken harshly or cruelly to either him or his sister whenever they'd been over to play at Kat's. He'd never threatened them to within an inch of their lives for coming on his property or touching his stuff. Unlike his brother Merle, who'd always viewed and treated them as if they were some sort of mongrel animal that should be put down just for existing, Daryl had always treated them as human beings—as kids. He'd always been respectful and kind and decent. Qualities that Jackson saw he still possessed in spite of the cold reality of this new world they were living in. Oh, man, just let someone smart off at him, though. Daryl had a quick-fire temper and wasn't afraid to get into a fight. Jackson used to think that it was easier to shoot yourself and be done with it than to get into a fight with him.

Even a kid like him could see that some of those rough edges that Daryl had had way back when had softened. Just because those edges had been rounded out by Daryl's personal experiences did not mean he had any desire to mess with him.  _I'll pass, thank you very much_. He indicated that to Carl who made a sound that was an equal mix of agreement and amusement.

Carl wiped a hand over Judith's face before saying, "I don't think even Daryl would get as pissed off as my dad about this sorta stuff." He grimaced. "And I don't think either him or Kat can manage to yell even when they're talking in a whisper."

Jackson snorted a laugh at that. He knew—well! about how loud Kat could get when her dander was up. He'd heard her yell plenty of times whenever Merle would come around and pull or say something that she didn't like. She wasn't quiet, and she sure wasn't nice in what she tended to say to the older man.  _Quite a lot of what she would shout at Merle wasn't polite or respectful_ , he wrote in the dirt.  _Got told plenty that I wasn't to repeat any of the words she used._

Carl glanced at what he'd written and smirked before saying, "Merle could make a preacher cuss. He- Judith," he huffed after she splashed water into his face, "would you quit it?"

The little girl just giggled and splashed more water at him. Carl wiped his face on his sleeve as Jackson grinned. It was clear from the small grin tugging at his lips that he loved his baby sister. He spent a lot of time catering to her whims and desires, playing whatever games with her and even reading to her before laying her down for the night. Their entire group tended to dote upon Judith. And why shouldn't they? he mused as he scooped wet silt into a mound that he helped Bo shape into a rectangle. Judith and Bo were the two bright spots in their otherwise chaotic world. They were the light and the joy of a group of people who had little otherwise to be happy about. They gave them all hope about how there might be a future without the threat of becoming one of  _them_  looming overhead.

"My dad left Merle handcuffed to a pipe once," Carl announced out of the blue. He glanced over at Jackson, his face betraying only a hint of the bitterness that was in his voice. "It was before we knew that he'd come out of the coma he'd fallen into after getting shot. Merle and Glenn and a few others were on top of a building when they rescued my dad from a horde of walkers. And my dad handcuffed Merle to a pipe."

Jackson let the words wash over him. At first, he didn't believe Carl, thought he was just telling him a story in order to yank his chain. The sincere look upon his face, as well as the swirl of grief that swam through his eyes, told him he was telling him the truth. Jackson felt his jaw go slack and his mouth hung agape as the shock of it all slammed into him. He literally could do nothing but stare at Carl with his eyes wide as saucers for a number of minutes. He just couldn't believe that anybody could actually overpower and handcuff Merle Dixon to a pipe. Yet, clearly, Mr. Grimes had managed to do so. He wrote _why did he handcuff him_? in the dirt.

_Not_ , he thought as he waited for Carl's answer, that he didn't already have a good idea about why Merle had been handcuffed to that pipe. He could well imagine just why it was that the older Dixon had gotten himself in that sort of fix.

"Well," Carl said slowly, a thoughtful frown knitting his brow. "Glenn said that it was because Merle was endangering the group by doing some real dumb stuff that finally pissed my dad off."

Jackson could believe it. He'd seen what  _dumb stuff_  that Merle was capable of pulling- especially if he'd been drinking. Still, he couldn't believe that anybody, much less a man of Mr. Grimes' more moderate size, being able to take down the more physically imposing Merle.

"My dad had no choice but to cuff him so that he and the others could escape before the walkers could get to 'em."

Jackson pointed at Daryl, his face clearly saying:  _And he didn't kick your dad's ass for it_?

"They did almost come to blows," Carl said with a slight nod. "But some of the others managed to keep 'em from actually taking a swing at each other."

Jackson imagined it musta took a chokehold or ten men to keep Daryl from kicking the crap out of Mr. Grimes for having left his brother like that. You didn't mess with a Dixon. Not if you liked your teeth inside your mouth. Jackson had been there during a few occasions where someone had messed with one or the both of them and the other had delivered a beat down upon the perpetrator. He knew how deadly a confrontation with either could be. Seemingly, though, the two men had moved beyond the incident, given how they were still part of the same group. There was a bond of friendship between the two men that he knew only came from facing off with the Devil and somehow managing to get each other out alive. He handed a small plastic cup to Bo, smiling as the toddler immediately slammed the cup into the glistening water in order to create ripples that elicited delighted "oohs" and "ah's" from him and Judith both.

"So," Carl said as he watched the two at play. "Do you mind me asking about why you can't talk?"

Clearly, the topic hadn't been closed as he'd thought. Jackson chewed on his bottom lip as he pondered the question. It was valid enough and there didn't appear to be any censure or condemnation in his tone. He finally glanced at Carl; saw that there was genuine curiosity as well as compassion and sympathy in the older boy's eyes. Still, he hesitated. It wasn't that he didn't think Carl wouldn't understand why he couldn't- _didn't_ , he silently corrected, talk. He could tell that the teen had been through enough in his own travels to understand why he'd chosen to take a vow of silence.

He also could see that Carl wasn't gonna judge him for what had happened to him, that he wouldn't hold him as accountable for the situation or view him as something that needed to be pitied because he hadn't been able to stop what happened from happening. His reticence was more from this not being a subject that he liked discussing with anybody, not even Kat more than it was anything else. A part of him wanted to share-desperately share, in fact, his dark secret with someone who was both male and closer to his own age. As much as he loved Kat, as awesome as she was at getting him, at understanding what he was feeling or thinking, she was still just a girl. She just wasn't able to fully understand how it was that his mind and body tended to work. No more than he could understand how hers worked. However, there was still a part of him that was ashamed of what had happened to him at the hands of Roy Jensen.

_Kat says I shouldn't be ashamed of what was done to me, that it wasn't my fault, I didn't ask for what happened, that I couldn't stop what Tyler, Roy and Brady Jensen were plumb set on doing, that I was too young to be able to defend myself._

Course, that didn't stop Kat from blaming  _herself_ for what happened that night, of course. Even in spite of the fact that she and Merle had made Roy and Tyler both pay for their crimes; she still blamed herself for what they'd done to him, his sister and old man Clyde. Jackson reckoned she'd always blame herself. It was just the sort of woman that Kat was.

And he loved her even more 'cause she was that kind of woman.

"Jackson?"

Jackson shrugged off his dark musings with a small sigh and pointed to his throat, making a crushed motion with his hand. It was a safe and truthful answer, he felt. His throat  _had_  been crushed. He just didn't elaborate upon  _how_.

"You got choked?"

Jackson shook his head and indicated his throat again with the same crushed motion. He saw realization dawn a second later.

"Your throat got  _crushed_?"

He nodded his head, his mouth turning down into a frown chock full of the bitterness burning a hole in his belly. Carl breathed out a soft curse that Jackson knew Kat would scorch his butt over if she'd heard it. He half imagined hearing her make that disproving  _Tt_  sound before fixing Carl with a steely look that even from this distance would cause him to squirm. Kat didn't appear over the bluff to scold Carl, however. He flashed a quick grin at him, indicating where Kat was sitting and mouthing the word "lucky."

Carl gave him a responding smile and nod before mouthing, "I know," at him.

It all felt normal—so blessedly normal that he allowed himself to forget for a minute that they were in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and just two kids playing by a small stream with their baby brother and sister while the adults talked and fished. It was a short-lived moment, however. Reality returned as Jackson turned his gaze upon the two laughing toddlers, watching as they happily splashed at the glistening water. Their innocent joy and content caused his heart to ache for one brief minute. He'd had moments like this with his family. He'd been as carefree and as sweetly naive about the world as Bo and Judith were. Then the virus came, turning people into the very monsters that he used to hide under his covers from. His mom and dad fell to the sickness first. Then his Auntie Mabel and Uncle Joe got attacked while they were trying to escape. Grandpa Jessup locked them in the root cellar before he tried to go and get Grandma Paulette from the hospital. He and his sister had been left to fend for themselves after that.

It wasn't until Kat had stumbled into their yard with a heavily pregnant Jolene that things had looked to improve. Then everything had gone "straight to the dogs" as Kat liked to say and people had to run in order to survive. They'd done okay, at first. They'd managed to fall in with Clyde and his family. They'd made a camp up in the hills, built a small community. Then Jolene had run off, making Kat chase after her, and the Jensen's came too— _no_ , he wasn't gonna think about that night. Not right now. Today was a good day and he wasn't gonna let what happened to him ruin it. He pushed his dark memories back—not away, for that was beyond him and scooped more wet sand onto the mound that was steadily growing. Fantasy had somehow become the new reality once the dust had settled.  _Only_ , he realized as he handed a cup to Judith, there was no man off camera to call "cut" when the scene was done. Walkers, as well as the bad people, could show up at any point to take away this small bit of life they'd managed to find.

_And that_ , Jackson, thought with a long and drawn out sigh, was what scared him the most about them relaxing their guard. The walkers or bad people could come back at any time, without any word and without any notice. However, just because he was smart enough to know that didn't mean he'd been able to avoid thinking about how life might finally get back to some sort of normal now that they'd found Carl, Rick, Daryl and the others. Kat wasn't gonna be alone anymore, she had Daryl and other people now who could usurp some of the responsibilities she'd been shouldering on her own for the last year.

They'd finally be part of a family. It was something Kat had been promising him ever since they'd left his folks' root cellar. She'd told him that they'd find Daryl, find some place safe, and be a family. She'd believed there was hope still for them to have a normal life, kept saying that they'd get through this, that they'd all be okay, that he'd see she was right. Jackson had stopped believing that it was possible after the Jensens' took his sister and old man Clyde away. Now the chance for that long abandoned dream to become reality was staring him in the face. And it was scaring the bejesus out of him.

Why?

'Cause ten-year-old Jackson Tierney knew how quickly it could all be taken away from him. He had seen how fast things could change when he had been forced to watch as his family — the one he had been born into and not the one he had found after his family had been taken away, had all become casualties to a disease nobody seemed to know anything about. The early days of the outbreak had been hectic, that much was true, but there had still been living being done while people searched for a way to survive whatever it was that was going on.

That had changed right after Merle had taken them to a small farmhouse so he could recover from the things Roy Jensen had done. Before he had left to go and find Daryl, he had ordered Kat to "keep her sweet ass put," and not to "go out any farther than the ole well."

Merle had only been gone for a day when Jolene tried to befriend a group of walkers who happened into the yard. Kat had been forced to take on even more responsibility than she already had after that. Merle had come when he could, bringing supplies and keeping Kat updated on his progress. His visits ended abruptly after he brought word that he'd found Daryl and that they needed to be ready to move out as soon as they got back.

Kat had never let on, but Jackson knew she had assumed that something bad had happened to Merle. Something that had stopped him from coming as he'd promised them he would. Jackson had believed something had happened to him, as well. He would have come otherwise. He would have gotten them out of that cabin. He wouldn't break a promise he made to Kat. He would have brought Daryl to her. He wouldn't let her down. Merle had changed. He hadn't been the same self-serving bastard that Kat routinely yelled at him that he was.

_He'd have kept his promise if he was alive._

Carl cut into his silent musings to ask, "Think we should go up and give Kat and Daryl a hand with catching dinner?"

Jackson looked over at him and shook his head. There was no way he was going to go up there and interrupt any sort of private time that was going on between the two adults. No way, man, not him. He indicated as much to Carl who nodded his agreement with a hint of a smile on his lips.

"We've never seen Daryl act the way he does around Kat," he admitted as he took another rock away from his sister. "He's different around her. More… I dunno," he paused; shrugged. "More calm, I guess."

Jackson was used to how Daryl acted around Kat. It was how he had acted back before things had gone bad. He wrote that to Carl in the dirt.

"I told my dad I didn't think Daryl would be acting so goofy about Kat if Merle was still part of the group." He looked at Jackson, his eyes glinting with just a hint of mirth. "He said he would still be acting just as goofy."

_I think he would, too_ , Jackson thought.  _I don't think Daryl would be actin' any different than he is right now. He fought with Merle about Kat, wouldn't give her up no matter what all Merle threatened or said_. He wrote that in the dirt, too.

"You don't think-"

The sound of a hammer cocking cut short whatever Carl was about to say. Jackson felt every nerve and muscle inside his body tense at that all too familiar sound. He froze when he heard a voice straight out of his nightmares growl, "Well, well. What've we got here?"

_Oh, no… not him,_ he thought with a rising surge of panic.  _Please, not him_.  _Please, let it be anyone but him_. A loud roaring filled his ears as he glanced up at the bluff and saw how the very Devil himself was standing there. The sun glinted off the barrel of the gun he held in one meaty paw.

"I been lookin' all over Creation for you, bitch." A cold, cruel smile twisted the scarred face of Brady Jensen. "Been waitin' to make your ass pay for what all you and that backstabbin' asshole did to my brothers."

_We gotta go get your dad and the others_ , he scribbled in the dirt before he scooped a thankfully silent Bo up into his arms.

_And we gotta get 'em now_ , he added silently as he turned to quickly make his way into the forest.

 


	18. Chapter 18

In the long shadows cast by the dense canopy of the trees, they were blind; vulnerable. Jackson and Carl ran like a pair of white-tailed deer, tearing through brush, leaping over broken tree limbs, skirting the gnarled roots and vines that poked up from the ground like bony fingers. Both of them knew that time was of the essence. Daryl and Kat could be killed without a backward thought or glance by their captor. If they could get back to the farmhouse, if they could raise the alarm, they could get help back to them. Carl prayed with every beat of his heart that they would make it. And that his dad and Glenn and the others would all be there and not off on a supply run.

_Dad'll be there_ , was his only thought. He repeated the words over and over inside his mind, almost chanting them whenever a sound or a movement in the shadows heightened his sense of urgency. His dad had many faults, and he'd made many mistakes, but Carl knew that when the chips were down and one of them was in trouble, his dad would be there to try and help rescue them. His legs and arms started to burn, but he ignored his own discomfort and pressed onwards, his resolve giving him renewed strength. A glance to his left showed him that Jackson was straining under Bo's additional weight. His face and neck were bathed in sweat and his breath was coming in short, gasping pants that shattered the silence that had fallen all around them.

"Just a bit farther," he wheezed. "The farmhouse is just through the next grove of trees."

Jackson managed to flash him a small, pained smile before he hoisted Bo higher onto his back and pressed on. When the canopy of trees grew so thick that it completely obliterated any and all light from the sun, Carl slowed his pace from a mad dash to a quick jog. Stopping, even for one second, was never an option that he considered. Danger lurked all around them. A group of walkers could have heard the noise they'd been making and come out to intercept them or they could stumble across another group camping in the woods who were as bad as the men Daryl had briefly fallen in with. He also had to stop and not only consider the safety of his sister, Judith but that of Bo, as well. Both toddlers were in his care. He was the oldest, the acting adult, and it was his responsibility to see to their safety. The toddlers must have sensed the danger they were because they'd thankfully been silent throughout this entire mad race against the clock.

Carl heard the inarticulate moaning of the things that were dead, but not the second they reached the middle of the glade. Walkers were behind him, close, too close. However many, he did not know. It wasn't like he was gonna stop and take a headcount. Besides, he'd known they were lurking in the shadows. He'd known they were out there, waiting, always waiting. He could smell their fetid breath and rotting flesh over that of the still moist earth beneath his feet. His breath was coming now in great, gulping gasps tattered by his fear. And yet, through it all, his heart continued to beat with a steady determination and one thought:  _Just get through the next set of trees and we'll be okay_.  _Dad'll be there and he will see the walkers. He will make them go away._

A hand snatched at him, nearly grasped hold of his shirt, but he dodged to the left before those grasping fingers could get hold of the cottony material. He nearly tripped over a set of roots he hadn't seen protruding from the ground until the very last second. He managed to hop them, but still stumbled; nearly fell. He managed to right himself as Judith let out a tiny whimper. Her small cry firmed his resolve and gave his feet added wings. He would  _not_  fail, he told himself. He would not let Judith or Bo or Jackson get caught. He'd get them all to safety, he would get his father, and he would get him and the others back to Daryl and Kat.

_Period_.

He and Jackson burst from the trees and tore up the road, running like wild things now as they tried to escape the horde they'd stumbled upon in their haste. Carl almost slammed into the back of someone, so distracted was he by his focus upon getting to his father, but hands grabbed him and stopped him before he did. Fear rolled through Carl and he twisted, lashed out with his feet. He heard someone utter a harsh, "goddamn it," before he heard his father bark, "Carl!" and recognized the familiarity of the hands that were holding onto him as belonging to those of Glenn. More than relief rippled through him, for here was the longed for salvation and the protection that he and Jackson were in need of. Even with fear and exhaustion threatening to send him to his knees, he was overjoyed at seeing his father.

"Dad…" he breathed out, swallowed. "Dad, come quick. There's trouble."

"Trouble…?" his dad questioned with one eyebrow raised. "What trouble?"

"Behind us," he managed to say as his heart finally settled back into his chest. "Whole horde of walkers."

"Where are Daryl and Kat?" Glenn asked as he released Carl and took a step back. "Why aren't they with you?"

He sucked in a ragged breath, let it out before launching into the quickest explanation he could. "We were down at the creek and fishing when a man showed up and he-"

"Slow down, Carl," Rick suggested in that way that said he was really ordering him to do it but making it  _sound_  as if it was a suggestion. "Start at the-"

"I don't have time to start at the beginning!" Carl exploded. Judith jumped at his loud shout and he took a precious moment to soothe her before saying to his father, "Look!" as he swung a wild arm behind him. "There!"

Rick and Glenn could only watch in horrified stupefaction as shambling figures in all stages of decay slowly started emerging from the trees at the edge of the road. Ragged arms hanging akimbo, grotesque faces with empty eyes leering at them, and their mouths working busily, they slowly fanned out to creep across the grass like an early spring fog. Some were dragging their mangled, rotten limbs along behind them like lead weights. Others, who no longer had lower limbs to pull behind them, pulled themselves across the ground on fingers curved into talons, their eviscerated innards leaving a bloody trail in their wake.

"Holy shit," Glenn breathed out as he reached for his handgun. "Shit, shit, shit..."

"Carl, you and Jackson get Judith and Bo back to the farmhouse," Rick ordered as he reached for his revolver. "Tell Abraham and the others that we got walkers." To Glenn, he said, "We'll hold them off while they make a run for it."

Carl could see that Glenn's face was as grim as his father's. He knew that things were bad-  _when weren't things bad, though_? He mentally added. However, he wasn't going to leave without first telling his father about Kat and Daryl.

"Dad…" he began. "Daryl and Kat-"

"Now, Carl!" his father snapped as his revolver belched fire and cordite. "Get going!"

Carl felt the sting of bitterness mixing with his resentment at being ordered around as if he was just some dumb kid deep in his already churning belly. Hadn't he managed to get him and Jackson this far? Hadn't he kept Judith and Bo as safe as he could? Hadn't he somehow found his dad in order to warn him about the walkers and the danger that Daryl and Kat were in? Hadn't he proven he was able to take care of himself? Hadn't he  _finally_  earned his father's trust and respect? He deserved to have his say, dammit. He met his father's gaze with his own and stubbornly insisted, "What about Daryl and Kat? Huh? They've got some man holding them at gunpoint by the creek."

Rick took a moment to set a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We will work on rescuing Daryl and Kat just as soon as we handle these walkers," he told him. "I promise you that, Carl. We won't abandon Daryl and Kat to an uncertain fate." His fingers squeezed, gently. "For now, get on back to the farmhouse and do as I said."

He knew that "do as I said," was about as close to his father came with tasking him with anything important.

"Alright," he sighed before looking over at Jackson. "C'mon, let's go and get the others."

Jackson followed without uttering a sound.

"I been lookin' all over Creation for you, bitch," Kat heard over the static humming in her ears.  _It couldn't be him_ , was her only thought. It couldn't be. Merle told her he'd handled it. He'd told her that he'd made sure he'd paid for what he'd done. He wouldn't have lied. However, when she heard his next statement, she knew it was him. "Been waitin' to make your ass pay for what all you and that backstabbin' asshole did to my brothers."

Kat lifted her head slowly to meet the empty black pools that belonged to Brady Jensen. She knew it was him because one side of his disgusting face was a mottled mass of white scar tissue from where he'd gone through a sliding glass door to escape a frenzied mob of undead. A thin line across his throat said Merle had done as she'd requested, but somehow, somehow, the bastard had managed to evade the hands of Death.

_He won't evade 'em twice_ , she thought as hate and anger churned like butter in her gut.  _He'll get his just due right here, today_.

"Well, lookie what hell spit back up," she hissed. She felt more than saw the warning look that Daryl sent her, but ignored him. "Guess even the Devil found a rapin' bastard like you to be beyond what he could have runnin' around his kingdom."

"That redneck asshole thought he got me." He barked a laugh. "Fooled the dumb son of a bitch, didn't I?"

Her lips thinned into a hard line. "You mighta fooled Merle," she told him. "But you ain't gonna fool me."

Brady laughed harder. "You honestly think you're gonna kill me?" He shook his head. "You touched in the head, bitch."

"And you're dead."

"All this 'cause my brothers and I introduced those little spooks to the pleasures of life?"

"All this because you and your murderin', rapin' brothers laid hands on two kids and an old man who never done nothin' to no damn body." Acid would have tasted sweeter than her tone. "And 'cause you left a little boy to do something that no damn body should ever have to do: put down his own sister."

As soon as she hurled those words at Brady, the memories came, plunging her back to the fifth worst night of her life and gleefully reminding her that what connected her, Jackson, Daryl, Rick and Carl together was one thing:  _the unthinkable_ …

**A year ago.**

Kat knew as soon as they pulled up outside the small house that something was wrong. For one thing, Clyde wasn't sitting in the old porch swing, his rifle across his knees as he watched the road for anything that might come along. Nor had Jackson come out to greet them soon as they heard the old truck driving up the lane. That fact alone was enough to make the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Jacks always came running out to greet her when she came back from a run. That he wasn't coming out now could only mean something had happened while they were gone. Her heart thumping in her chest, she made to exit the vehicle, but Merle laid his prosthetic arm across her chest to detain her.

"Stay here," he ordered gruffly, his eyes upon the house. "Keep an eye on your sister."

"Merle-" she began but he cut her off.

"Don't even bother tryin' to sass me, girly," he growled as he climbed out of the truck. "Just do as I said."

Studying his face for just a moment told her everything she needed to know. Even his gut was telling him that there was something wrong with this picture. And she trusted Merle's instincts almost as much as she trusted Daryl's. A tactless, classless, misogynistic and racist asshole Merle Dixon might be, but he was a man who lived by his instincts. If they were screaming at him that something wasn't right? Well, then something just wasn't right.

"A'ight," she conceded. "I'll stay here and watch after Jolene."

"Keep the doors locked," he told her before he exited the car. "And if I ain't back in ten minutes, you get behind that wheel and drive until you run outta gas."

"I ain't leavin' without you and Bo," she informed him in a no-nonsense tone. "Or without Clyde, Jackson, and Jeannie for that matter."

"Look, girly, I ain't rescuin' no damn bleedin' heart liberal or two little nigger children."

"Then I'm goin' with you," she informed him curtly. "'Cause I ain't leaving without 'em."

She watched the fury roll across his face, and waited for his retaliation, knowing she had been pushing her luck when she'd refused to heed his command. She held to her resolve. She was absolutely not leaving the farm without Clyde, Jeannie and Jackson and that was all there was to it. Merle finally bent down to fix Kat with a baleful look.

"Have it your way, sweet cheeks," he rasped. "I'll go and save that pansy-ass dumbocrat and them two porch monkeys you've adopted."

Kat felt her back tense up, as it always did whenever Merle went into one of his tangents and counted to ten before she replied. She'd already tested him once. Doing so again could only bring problems that she didn't need at that moment. And without Daryl here to run interference between us... she let the thought trail off with a sigh. This was no time for her to be sittin' on her ass and wishin' Daryl was there. He wasn't there and that was all there was to it.

"Thank you," was all she said finally.

Merle replied with a gruff, "Lock the doors and remember what I said," before pushing the driver door closed and ambling away. Kat watched him go. Her every nerve and muscle twitched with unease as he slowly, cautiously approached the silent house. He glanced back at her, once, a smirk curling his lips before he reached for the handle of the front door. Kat held her breath and watched as Merle disappeared inside the house. When there was no immediate commotion, no loud verbal exchange between Clyde and Merle, and no sudden appearance of any of her three absent group members, she figured it was God's way of confirming what she'd already started to suspect. The silence was broken by the sound of gunfire. Kat's stomach pitched violently and she thought she was going to spew the bike that gushed into her mouth all over the dashboard. She bore down, pushed it back and was out the car just as Merle appeared in the doorway, Bo cradled in his good arm.

"Oh, thank, God," she breathed out as soon as she saw the infant was unharmed.

Merle passed the baby to her while gritting, "Thought I told your ass to stay in the car and watch over your sister?"

Kat detected the strained edge to his voice and glanced up at his face while she held Bo close. His face was just a bit pale, the skin clammy with perspiration despite the slight chill in the air, and his pupils just a bit more dilated than usual. Whatever had happened inside the farmhouse had been bad enough that it had managed to disturb him. "Merle...?" she asked slowly. "What all happened in there?"

"Don't you worry about what went on in there, girly," he told her as he took hold of her arm and walked her back to the car. "You get your ass in that car so we can get gone."

"What about Jacks?" she insisted. "Jeannie? Clyde?"

"I done told you to not worry 'bout that shit."

"Just tell me what happened, Merle. I'm a big girl," she said. "I can take it."

"Katherine..." he warned. "I done said to let it go. Now hush up and get in the damn car."

The fact he used her whole name, something that nobody, not even the members of her own family ever used caused the alarm bells going off inside Kat to scream even louder. A glance at his face told her all she needed to know.

"Oh, no," she whimpered as the awful truth she'd been trying to deny came hammering home. Tears welled and spilled down her cheeks like a mid-August rain. "No no no..."

"Don't you go cryin' over this shit," he ordered her tersely. "Ain't got no time to be molly coddlin' your ass. Now get ass in the car so we can get the hell outta here."

Kat was far too numb at that point to do much more than follow his command. She went to get into the car as he ordered but froze when gunfire again shattered the stillness of the night. Before she could even form the words to ask him what was going on, Merle had bounded away, his revolver in hand. Kat set Bo on the floor of the front seat before taking off after him. She rounded the corner of the farmhouse at a dead run, her heart pounding with fear and her head throbbing like a bad tooth. Everything in her hoped to hell that Merle hadn't had to shoot one of the kids. As much of a cold-hearted bastard as Merle Dixon was, as much of an asshole as he could be, she knew putting a kid down would rip holes inside of him that would never, ever heal. Kat managed to stop herself a second before colliding with Merle, who was standing with his back to her and his gaze locked on something he, alone could see.

"What the...?" she panted. "Merle?"

He glanced back at her from over one shoulder, a half smirk lifting one side of his mouth. "Girly, you're as stubborn as my brother says you are."

"Consider the source," she muttered. "He's just as stubborn as I am."

"He follows my orders, at least."

She sent him a warning look from beneath lowered lashes. "Don't start with that shit, Merle. You know how much I hate whenever you make Daryl jump at your beck 'n call."

A gleam crept into his eyes and he half-turned towards her, clearly intending to take up the gauntlet she'd unwittingly tossed at him, but he seemed to decide against it, instead telling her to, "go back to the car."

However, he'd turned his body just enough to the side that she was finally able to see Jackson, alive but in grave condition. She let out a soft gasp as she took in the blood and bruises on his nine-year-old face. More bruises circled his throat, mottled his back and torso. Tears were pouring from his swollen eyes and mixing with the gore to create a mask that made her belly heave. His tiny knuckles had bled white with how tight a grip he had on the pistol that he held upon a figure that she could not see.

"Kat," Merle began in a low voice. "Go on back to the car and take care of Boone. I'll-"

"No." She lifted burning eyes to his. "No. Jacks won't come to you."

"Hell, I ain't-"

"Jackson..." she called out softly, ignoring Merle completely. She heard him swear, long and foul but inched around him in order to talk to the distraught boy. A boy, she thought with a guilty pang, that she'd failed when she left him in order to go after her sister, Jo with Merle. "Jackson, honey, look at me. Please."

At first, it seemed like he hadn't even heard her. His gaze remained riveted upon whatever was lying face down at his feet. She caught a glimpse of a pink and white t-shirt and felt her body go cold as she realized who it was that Jackson may have shot. Oh, no, she thought. Please, God, no...

"Jacks..." she managed to croak around the lump that had lodged itself in her throat. "Jacks, look at me, honey."

Her voice must have finally registered because he slowly turned his head towards her. As soon as she looked into those haunted eyes, she knew he'd been forced to do the unthinkable. The moment she saw that mixture of shame and guilt, horror and anguish, vulnerability and rage, she knew he'd been pushed into doing the unbelievable. She could tell he was doing his very damnedest to keep it all together, to keep all the hurt and anger and pain that's rolling around inside his head; in his heart locked inside.

_Shit_  was her only clearheaded thought. Over and over it played through her head. It's the most appropriate word she could think of at that moment.  _No, that's not right_ , she thought as she drew in a shuddering breath. Bullshit is what it really was. Complete and utter bullshit. Anger and fear and grief had formed lead bombs in her belly. For a moment, just one, she thought she was going to lose what little contents were in her stomach. She hammered it all down, though, swallowed the nausea back, and focused on the boy standing there, trembling. She couldn't give into either weakness or the burning desire to hunt down whoever was responsible for hurting him. Bo and Jo were counting on her to be the strong one.

_Jackson needs me to be strong_ , she thought. So for him, she'd be strong. She'd be the rock that the storm would hammer, the tree that would bend but never break. She crouched to one knee and simply held open her arms. He gave her ten seconds before he hurled himself across the short distance and launched himself into her arms.

"I got you, honey," she murmured as she rocked him in her arms. "I got you."

You ain't gonna kill me," Brady's voice drew her back to the present. "You ain't gonna do any damn thing to me. 'Cause if you even try? I'll shoot your bitch mongrel there."

"Who the hell do you think you're talkin', too?"

It took every ounce of Kat's will to keep her from throwing herself against Daryl, to shield him. If she did, if she so much as looked at him, they'd both be dead. She told herself to be patient, to trust that Jacks had seen what was going on and taken himself, Carl and the babies back to the farmhouse.

"Who do I think I'm talkin', too?" A hammer clicked and caused her heart to stop beating for a good thirty seconds. "I think I'm talkin' to some redneck asshole tryin' to play the knight in shining armor."

"Best watch your mouth, sunshine."

"Or you'll do what? Kill me?" Brady let out a laugh before he sobered and aimed the revolver right at Daryl's head. "Like to see you try, boy."

"That's the second time that you aimed that thing at my head," Daryl growled. "You gonna pull the trigger or what?"

Kat swallowed a gasp at his taunting words. She wanted to shout at him, to tell him to shut up, to not tempt fate. She kept quiet, though, knew that opening her mouth would only put him further in danger. One thought kept playing over and over in her mind as Brady and Daryl stared at each other over the barrel of that gun: the bastard was not going to take away Daryl. Brady Jensen would not harm someone else that she loved.

She'd see his sorry ass dead, first.

"No," Brady simpered. "No, I'm gonna make you watch as I fuck your woman. Show her what bein' with a real man is like."

Daryl's face went hard as stone. "I'll kill your ass before you touch her," he promised in a voice that all but vibrated with his promise.

"Damn, but ain't you got more balls than brains," Brady chuckled. "But see, you just ain't gettin' it, son. You ain't gonna do jack shit."

"Yeah?" Daryl flung back. "Watch me."

_A weapon_ , she thought wildly,  _I need to find a way to reach one of our weapons_. A subtle shift of her eyes showed her that Daryl's crossbow was within easy reach. If she could distract Brady, if she could keep his attention upon her for just five seconds, Daryl could easily get his hands on it. She drew in a breath, released it. She gave a subtle nudge to the hand on her thigh to let him know to be ready. She felt his fingers move, felt him trace the word no, but ignored him. He wasn't sacrificing himself. Not to save her. No way, nuh uh, absolutely not happening. Kat gathered herself together, prepared to leap, to use teeth and nails if needs be.

And froze when the air was suddenly filled by the garbled and inarticulate groaning that could only belong to the walking damned...

 


	19. Chapter 19

In the long shadows cast by the dense canopy of the trees, they were blind; vulnerable. Jackson and Carl ran like a pair of white-tailed deer, tearing through brush, leaping over broken tree limbs, skirting the gnarled roots and vines that poked up from the ground like bony fingers. Both of them knew that time was of the essence. Daryl and Kat could be killed without a backward thought or glance by their captor. If they could get back to the farmhouse, if they could raise the alarm, they could get help back to them. Carl prayed with every beat of his heart that they would make it. And that his dad and Glenn and the others would all be there and not off on a supply run.

_Dad'll be there_ , was his only thought. He repeated the words over and over inside his mind, almost chanting them whenever a sound or a movement in the shadows heightened his sense of urgency. His dad had many faults, and he'd made many mistakes, but Carl knew that when the chips were down and one of them was in trouble, his dad would be there to try and help rescue them. His legs and arms started to burn, but he ignored his own discomfort and pressed onwards, his resolve giving him renewed strength. A glance to his left showed him that Jackson was straining under Bo's additional weight. His face and neck were bathed in sweat and his breath was coming in short, gasping pants that shattered the silence that had fallen all around them.

"Just a bit farther," he wheezed. "The farmhouse is just through the next grove of trees."

Jackson managed to flash him a small, pained smile before he hoisted Bo higher onto his back and pressed on. When the canopy of trees grew so thick that it completely obliterated any and all light from the sun, Carl slowed his pace from a mad dash to a quick jog. Stopping, even for one second, was never an option that he considered. Danger lurked all around them. A group of walkers could have heard the noise they'd been making and come out to intercept them or they could stumble across another group camping in the woods who were as bad as the men Daryl had briefly fallen in with. He also had to stop and not only consider the safety of his sister, Judith but that of Bo, as well. Both toddlers were in his care. He was the oldest, the acting adult, and it was his responsibility to see to their safety. The toddlers must have sensed the danger they were because they'd thankfully been silent throughout this entire mad race against the clock.

Carl heard the inarticulate moaning of the things that were dead, but not the second they reached the middle of the glade. Walkers were behind him, close, too close. However many, he did not know. It wasn't like he was gonna stop and take a headcount. Besides, he'd known they were lurking in the shadows. He'd known they were out there, waiting, always waiting. He could smell their fetid breath and rotting flesh over that of the still moist earth beneath his feet. His breath was coming now in great, gulping gasps tattered by his fear. And yet, through it all, his heart continued to beat with a steady determination and one thought:  _Just get through the next set of trees and we'll be okay_.  _Dad'll be there and he will see the walkers. He will make them go away._

A hand snatched at him, nearly grasped hold of his shirt, but he dodged to the left before those grasping fingers could get hold of the cottony material. He nearly tripped over a set of roots he hadn't seen protruding from the ground until the very last second. He managed to hop them, but still stumbled; nearly fell. He managed to right himself as Judith let out a tiny whimper. Her small cry firmed his resolve and gave his feet added wings. He would  _not_  fail, he told himself. He would not let Judith or Bo or Jackson get caught. He'd get them all to safety, he would get his father, and he would get him and the others back to Daryl and Kat.

_Period_.

He and Jackson burst from the trees and tore up the road, running like wild things now as they tried to escape the horde they'd stumbled upon in their haste. Carl almost slammed into the back of someone, so distracted was he by his focus upon getting to his father, but hands grabbed him and stopped him before he did. Fear rolled through Carl and he twisted, lashed out with his feet. He heard someone utter a harsh, "goddamn it," before he heard his father bark, "Carl!" and recognized the familiarity of the hands that were holding onto him as belonging to those of Glenn. More than relief rippled through him, for here was the longed for salvation and the protection that he and Jackson were in need of. Even with fear and exhaustion threatening to send him to his knees, he was overjoyed at seeing his father.

"Dad…" he breathed out, swallowed. "Dad, come quick. There's trouble."

"Trouble…?" his dad questioned with one eyebrow raised. "What trouble?"

"Behind us," he managed to say as his heart finally settled back into his chest. "Whole horde of walkers."

"Where are Daryl and Kat?" Glenn asked as he released Carl and took a step back. "Why aren't they with you?"

He sucked in a ragged breath, let it out before launching into the quickest explanation he could. "We were down at the creek and fishing when a man showed up and he-"

"Slow down, Carl," Rick suggested in that way that said he was really ordering him to do it but making it  _sound_  as if it was a suggestion. "Start at the-"

"I don't have time to start at the beginning!" Carl exploded. Judith jumped at his loud shout and he took a precious moment to soothe her before saying to his father, "Look!" as he swung a wild arm behind him. "There!"

Rick and Glenn could only watch in horrified stupefaction as shambling figures in all stages of decay slowly started emerging from the trees at the edge of the road. Ragged arms hanging akimbo, grotesque faces with empty eyes leering at them, and their mouths working busily, they slowly fanned out to creep across the grass like an early spring fog. Some were dragging their mangled, rotten limbs along behind them like lead weights. Others, who no longer had lower limbs to pull behind them, pulled themselves across the ground on fingers curved into talons, their eviscerated innards leaving a bloody trail in their wake.

"Holy shit," Glenn breathed out as he reached for his handgun. "Shit, shit, shit..."

"Carl, you and Jackson get Judith and Bo back to the farmhouse," Rick ordered as he reached for his revolver. "Tell Abraham and the others that we got walkers." To Glenn, he said, "We'll hold them off while they make a run for it."

Carl could see that Glenn's face was as grim as his father's. He knew that things were bad-  _when weren't things bad, though_? He mentally added. However, he wasn't going to leave without first telling his father about Kat and Daryl.

"Dad…" he began. "Daryl and Kat-"

"Now, Carl!" his father snapped as his revolver belched fire and cordite. "Get going!"

Carl felt the sting of bitterness mixing with his resentment at being ordered around as if he was just some dumb kid deep in his already churning belly. Hadn't he managed to get him and Jackson this far? Hadn't he kept Judith and Bo as safe as he could? Hadn't he somehow found his dad in order to warn him about the walkers and the danger that Daryl and Kat were in? Hadn't he proven he was able to take care of himself? Hadn't he  _finally_  earned his father's trust and respect? He deserved to have his say, dammit. He met his father's gaze with his own and stubbornly insisted, "What about Daryl and Kat? Huh? They've got some man holding them at gunpoint by the creek."

Rick took a moment to set a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We will work on rescuing Daryl and Kat just as soon as we handle these walkers," he told him. "I promise you that, Carl. We won't abandon Daryl and Kat to an uncertain fate." His fingers squeezed, gently. "For now, get on back to the farmhouse and do as I said."

He knew that "do as I said," was about as close to his father came with tasking him with anything important.

"Alright," he sighed before looking over at Jackson. "C'mon, let's go and get the others."

Jackson followed without uttering a sound.

"I been lookin' all over Creation for you, bitch," Kat heard over the static humming in her ears.  _It couldn't be him_ , was her only thought. It couldn't be. Merle told her he'd handled it. He'd told her that he'd made sure he'd paid for what he'd done. He wouldn't have lied. However, when she heard his next statement, she knew it was him. "Been waitin' to make your ass pay for what all you and that backstabbin' asshole did to my brothers."

Kat lifted her head slowly to meet the empty black pools that belonged to Brady Jensen. She knew it was him because one side of his disgusting face was a mottled mass of white scar tissue from where he'd gone through a sliding glass door to escape a frenzied mob of undead. A thin line across his throat said Merle had done as she'd requested, but somehow, somehow, the bastard had managed to evade the hands of Death.

_He won't evade 'em twice_ , she thought as hate and anger churned like butter in her gut.  _He'll get his just due right here, today_.

"Well, lookie what hell spit back up," she hissed. She felt more than saw the warning look that Daryl sent her, but ignored him. "Guess even the Devil found a rapin' bastard like you to be beyond what he could have runnin' around his kingdom."

"That redneck asshole thought he got me." He barked a laugh. "Fooled the dumb son of a bitch, didn't I?"

Her lips thinned into a hard line. "You mighta fooled Merle," she told him. "But you ain't gonna fool me."

Brady laughed harder. "You honestly think you're gonna kill me?" He shook his head. "You touched in the head, bitch."

"And you're dead."

"All this 'cause my brothers and I introduced those little spooks to the pleasures of life?"

"All this because you and your murderin', rapin' brothers laid hands on two kids and an old man who never done nothin' to no damn body." Acid would have tasted sweeter than her tone. "And 'cause you left a little boy to do something that no damn body should ever have to do: put down his own sister."

As soon as she hurled those words at Brady, the memories came, plunging her back to the fifth worst night of her life and gleefully reminding her that what connected her, Jackson, Daryl, Rick and Carl together was one thing:  _the unthinkable_ …

**A year ago.**

Kat knew as soon as they pulled up outside the small house that something was wrong. For one thing, Clyde wasn't sitting in the old porch swing, his rifle across his knees as he watched the road for anything that might come along. Nor had Jackson come out to greet them soon as they heard the old truck driving up the lane. That fact alone was enough to make the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. Jacks always came running out to greet her when she came back from a run. That he wasn't coming out now could only mean something had happened while they were gone. Her heart thumping in her chest, she made to exit the vehicle, but Merle laid his prosthetic arm across her chest to detain her.

"Stay here," he ordered gruffly, his eyes upon the house. "Keep an eye on your sister."

"Merle-" she began but he cut her off.

"Don't even bother tryin' to sass me, girly," he growled as he climbed out of the truck. "Just do as I said."

Studying his face for just a moment told her everything she needed to know. Even his gut was telling him that there was something wrong with this picture. And she trusted Merle's instincts almost as much as she trusted Daryl's. A tactless, classless, misogynistic and racist asshole Merle Dixon might be, but he was a man who lived by his instincts. If they were screaming at him that something wasn't right? Well, then something just wasn't right.

"A'ight," she conceded. "I'll stay here and watch after Jolene."

"Keep the doors locked," he told her before he exited the car. "And if I ain't back in ten minutes, you get behind that wheel and drive until you run outta gas."

"I ain't leavin' without you and Bo," she informed him in a no-nonsense tone. "Or without Clyde, Jackson, and Jeannie for that matter."

"Look, girly, I ain't rescuin' no damn bleedin' heart liberal or two little nigger children."

"Then I'm goin' with you," she informed him curtly. "'Cause I ain't leaving without 'em."

She watched the fury roll across his face, and waited for his retaliation, knowing she had been pushing her luck when she'd refused to heed his command. She held to her resolve. She was absolutely not leaving the farm without Clyde, Jeannie and Jackson and that was all there was to it. Merle finally bent down to fix Kat with a baleful look.

"Have it your way, sweet cheeks," he rasped. "I'll go and save that pansy-ass dumbocrat and them two porch monkeys you've adopted."

Kat felt her back tense up, as it always did whenever Merle went into one of his tangents and counted to ten before she replied. She'd already tested him once. Doing so again could only bring problems that she didn't need at that moment. And without Daryl here to run interference between us... she let the thought trail off with a sigh. This was no time for her to be sittin' on her ass and wishin' Daryl was there. He wasn't there and that was all there was to it.

"Thank you," was all she said finally.

Merle replied with a gruff, "Lock the doors and remember what I said," before pushing the driver door closed and ambling away. Kat watched him go. Her every nerve and muscle twitched with unease as he slowly, cautiously approached the silent house. He glanced back at her, once, a smirk curling his lips before he reached for the handle of the front door. Kat held her breath and watched as Merle disappeared inside the house. When there was no immediate commotion, no loud verbal exchange between Clyde and Merle, and no sudden appearance of any of her three absent group members, she figured it was God's way of confirming what she'd already started to suspect. The silence was broken by the sound of gunfire. Kat's stomach pitched violently and she thought she was going to spew the bike that gushed into her mouth all over the dashboard. She bore down, pushed it back and was out the car just as Merle appeared in the doorway, Bo cradled in his good arm.

"Oh, thank, God," she breathed out as soon as she saw the infant was unharmed.

Merle passed the baby to her while gritting, "Thought I told your ass to stay in the car and watch over your sister?"

Kat detected the strained edge to his voice and glanced up at his face while she held Bo close. His face was just a bit pale, the skin clammy with perspiration despite the slight chill in the air, and his pupils just a bit more dilated than usual. Whatever had happened inside the farmhouse had been bad enough that it had managed to disturb him. "Merle...?" she asked slowly. "What all happened in there?"

"Don't you worry about what went on in there, girly," he told her as he took hold of her arm and walked her back to the car. "You get your ass in that car so we can get gone."

"What about Jacks?" she insisted. "Jeannie? Clyde?"

"I done told you to not worry 'bout that shit."

"Just tell me what happened, Merle. I'm a big girl," she said. "I can take it."

"Katherine..." he warned. "I done said to let it go. Now hush up and get in the damn car."

The fact he used her whole name, something that nobody, not even the members of her own family ever used caused the alarm bells going off inside Kat to scream even louder. A glance at his face told her all she needed to know.

"Oh, no," she whimpered as the awful truth she'd been trying to deny came hammering home. Tears welled and spilled down her cheeks like a mid-August rain. "No no no..."

"Don't you go cryin' over this shit," he ordered her tersely. "Ain't got no time to be molly coddlin' your ass. Now get ass in the car so we can get the hell outta here."

Kat was far too numb at that point to do much more than follow his command. She went to get into the car as he ordered but froze when gunfire again shattered the stillness of the night. Before she could even form the words to ask him what was going on, Merle had bounded away, his revolver in hand. Kat set Bo on the floor of the front seat before taking off after him. She rounded the corner of the farmhouse at a dead run, her heart pounding with fear and her head throbbing like a bad tooth. Everything in her hoped to hell that Merle hadn't had to shoot one of the kids. As much of a cold-hearted bastard as Merle Dixon was, as much of an asshole as he could be, she knew putting a kid down would rip holes inside of him that would never, ever heal. Kat managed to stop herself a second before colliding with Merle, who was standing with his back to her and his gaze locked on something he, alone could see.

"What the...?" she panted. "Merle?"

He glanced back at her from over one shoulder, a half smirk lifting one side of his mouth. "Girly, you're as stubborn as my brother says you are."

"Consider the source," she muttered. "He's just as stubborn as I am."

"He follows my orders, at least."

She sent him a warning look from beneath lowered lashes. "Don't start with that shit, Merle. You know how much I hate whenever you make Daryl jump at your beck 'n call."

A gleam crept into his eyes and he half-turned towards her, clearly intending to take up the gauntlet she'd unwittingly tossed at him, but he seemed to decide against it, instead telling her to, "go back to the car."

However, he'd turned his body just enough to the side that she was finally able to see Jackson, alive but in grave condition. She let out a soft gasp as she took in the blood and bruises on his nine-year-old face. More bruises circled his throat, mottled his back and torso. Tears were pouring from his swollen eyes and mixing with the gore to create a mask that made her belly heave. His tiny knuckles had bled white with how tight a grip he had on the pistol that he held upon a figure that she could not see.

"Kat," Merle began in a low voice. "Go on back to the car and take care of Boone. I'll-"

"No." She lifted burning eyes to his. "No. Jacks won't come to you."

"Hell, I ain't-"

"Jackson..." she called out softly, ignoring Merle completely. She heard him swear, long and foul but inched around him in order to talk to the distraught boy. A boy, she thought with a guilty pang, that she'd failed when she left him in order to go after her sister, Jo with Merle. "Jackson, honey, look at me. Please."

At first, it seemed like he hadn't even heard her. His gaze remained riveted upon whatever was lying face down at his feet. She caught a glimpse of a pink and white t-shirt and felt her body go cold as she realized who it was that Jackson may have shot. Oh, no, she thought. Please, God, no...

"Jacks..." she managed to croak around the lump that had lodged itself in her throat. "Jacks, look at me, honey."

Her voice must have finally registered because he slowly turned his head towards her. As soon as she looked into those haunted eyes, she knew he'd been forced to do the unthinkable. The moment she saw that mixture of shame and guilt, horror and anguish, vulnerability and rage, she knew he'd been pushed into doing the unbelievable. She could tell he was doing his very damnedest to keep it all together, to keep all the hurt and anger and pain that's rolling around inside his head; in his heart locked inside.

_Shit_  was her only clearheaded thought. Over and over it played through her head. It's the most appropriate word she could think of at that moment.  _No, that's not right_ , she thought as she drew in a shuddering breath. Bullshit is what it really was. Complete and utter bullshit. Anger and fear and grief had formed lead bombs in her belly. For a moment, just one, she thought she was going to lose what little contents were in her stomach. She hammered it all down, though, swallowed the nausea back, and focused on the boy standing there, trembling. She couldn't give into either weakness or the burning desire to hunt down whoever was responsible for hurting him. Bo and Jo were counting on her to be the strong one.

_Jackson needs me to be strong_ , she thought. So for him, she'd be strong. She'd be the rock that the storm would hammer, the tree that would bend but never break. She crouched to one knee and simply held open her arms. He gave her ten seconds before he hurled himself across the short distance and launched himself into her arms.

"I got you, honey," she murmured as she rocked him in her arms. "I got you."

You ain't gonna kill me," Brady's voice drew her back to the present. "You ain't gonna do any damn thing to me. 'Cause if you even try? I'll shoot your bitch mongrel there."

"Who the hell do you think you're talkin', too?"

It took every ounce of Kat's will to keep her from throwing herself against Daryl, to shield him. If she did, if she so much as looked at him, they'd both be dead. She told herself to be patient, to trust that Jacks had seen what was going on and taken himself, Carl and the babies back to the farmhouse.

"Who do I think I'm talkin', too?" A hammer clicked and caused her heart to stop beating for a good thirty seconds. "I think I'm talkin' to some redneck asshole tryin' to play the knight in shining armor."

"Best watch your mouth, sunshine."

"Or you'll do what? Kill me?" Brady let out a laugh before he sobered and aimed the revolver right at Daryl's head. "Like to see you try, boy."

"That's the second time that you aimed that thing at my head," Daryl growled. "You gonna pull the trigger or what?"

Kat swallowed a gasp at his taunting words. She wanted to shout at him, to tell him to shut up, to not tempt fate. She kept quiet, though, knew that opening her mouth would only put him further in danger. One thought kept playing over and over in her mind as Brady and Daryl stared at each other over the barrel of that gun: the bastard was not going to take away Daryl. Brady Jensen would not harm someone else that she loved.

She'd see his sorry ass dead, first.

"No," Brady simpered. "No, I'm gonna make you watch as I fuck your woman. Show her what bein' with a real man is like."

Daryl's face went hard as stone. "I'll kill your ass before you touch her," he promised in a voice that all but vibrated with his promise.

"Damn, but ain't you got more balls than brains," Brady chuckled. "But see, you just ain't gettin' it, son. You ain't gonna do jack shit."

"Yeah?" Daryl flung back. "Watch me."

_A weapon_ , she thought wildly,  _I need to find a way to reach one of our weapons_. A subtle shift of her eyes showed her that Daryl's crossbow was within easy reach. If she could distract Brady, if she could keep his attention upon her for just five seconds, Daryl could easily get his hands on it. She drew in a breath, released it. She gave a subtle nudge to the hand on her thigh to let him know to be ready. She felt his fingers move, felt him trace the word no, but ignored him. He wasn't sacrificing himself. Not to save her. No way, nuh uh, absolutely not happening. Kat gathered herself together, prepared to leap, to use teeth and nails if needs be.

And froze when the air was suddenly filled by the garbled and inarticulate groaning that could only belong to the walking damned...

 

 


	20. Chapter 20

Early the next morning, and a while before twilight gave into the demands of the fireball that would take control of the sky, Kat sat on the back porch with Daryl, his right arm loosely draped around her neck, her fingers tracing slow, soothing circles over the back of his hand. The scent of rain was heavy in the air, masking the smell of burnt flesh and burning wood that still smoldered even after so many hours had passed. Exhaustion hung heavy upon her and Daryl, as did lingering grief and other dark emotions neither of them was really up to delving into at that particular moment.

Kat knew they should go inside and try to get some sleep while they still could, morning would be here all too soon and bring with it a long list of things that needed to be done—supply gathering most prevalent among them. However, she imagined that Daryl, like herself, was too revved up to sleep. They had come out here, to sit, to be, to have this personal time together, to share the quiet of this moment with each other. After the nearly fatalistic events of the day before, and following all of the traumatizing moments that had happened to them during the years they had been forced to spend apart- this small bit of respite was something that had been more than desperately needed.

_And which was more than warranted_ , Kat reasoned as she settled herself more firmly against him. They had gone through just about everything that a couple could in the forty years they'd been together. He was her first, she was his only, and they were the last members of their respected families to survive the atrocities of this evil world. She knew Daryl's every secret; he knew her every fear. She'd let him sleep on her floor whenever he didn't want to go home, he'd helped her run away when things got super bad. She'd patched him up after every fight or hunting mishap, he'd stayed by her side after she'd gotten her appendix taken out. She'd taught him how to do more than roast meat over a spit, he'd taught her how to not miss dirt when she aimed at it.

They'd done their best to protect each other from those who tried to hurt them.

They'd watched out for each other and kept the other as safe as could be.

They'd kept each other standing when the shit hit the fan and splattered everywhere.

They'd helped each other to survive all of the bullshit that the world had tossed at them.

And they'd loved each other no matter that people told them it was wrong for them to do so.

_We still love each other_ , she mused as she threaded her fingers between his.  _We'll continue loving each other even after we die_. That they'd almost met their maker down by that creek wasn't a fact lost upon Kat.  _We almost left Bo and Jackson to face the world alone_. The memory of that was not one that she suspected either of them would easily forget. Same as they would not easily get over being forced to watch as a man was literally torn into nothing right before their very eyes by a group of things that loosely could still be called human. Kat much doubted that either of them would ever be able to completely forget about what had happened to Brady Jensen. The world may have forced them to stand-by and watch as it committed a multitude of sick and depraved things to a number of people over the years, but it didn't mean that they had become so far gone that they couldn't still be horrified, as well as disgusted, by seeing that ghastliness up close and in person.

_It was an atrocity that almost happened to Rick and Glenn as they were comin' to rescue our asses_ , she silently thought as she released a shuddering breath into the night air.  _They could have been torn to pieces the same as Brady if the rest of us hadn't gotten to them in time._

However, it wasn't just the fact that both men could have been made into the star dishes at the walkers Sunday dinner that most disturbed Kat. No, the other thing that she couldn't forget, the one thing that she knew she would never forget, was the soul-gripping terror that engulfed her after they burst out of the trees, their clothing still dripping wet from their brief splash through the creek, and saw that the horde they'd been running from had already found the road and was steadily making its way towards the farmhouse where the others were. Kat remembered the icy waves that had washed over her as she saw the number of shambling figures making their way along the road that led to the farmhouse.

Time slowed to an agonizing crawl. Every beat of her heart had sounded like a canon being fired, every breath she had taken screamed like hurricane-force winds through the tops of trees, and the droning, discordant buzz of the undead had sounded like a downed electrical line. It was almost as if the moment was one of those dramatic scenes where everything happened in slow-motion in order to maximize the effect of what was going on so that the hard reality of it sunk in.

Daryl had yanked her back against him as they watched, stupefied, as a wave of undead-each with one drive pulsing throughout whatever little remained of their cognitive abilities- went on and on. Across the way, they saw Rick and Glenn swallowed up by the sea of walkers. Even from their small distance, she had been able to see the twin expressions that had been upon Rick and Glenn's faces as they'd turned to meet the oncoming horde, resolute in their resolve and with a clear understanding that they might not be getting out of this situation alive...

**A few hours before**

A man, or what might have once been a man, Kat couldn't rightly tell given the things state of decay-stumbled out behind an unsuspecting Rick. The breath she had drawn to call out a warning, gurgled to a gasp. She clutched at Daryl's arm as she watched it snap what was left of its jaw in anticipation of the tasty treat it had found. It's twisted, blackened fingers curved into hooks as it reached out to grasp hold of Rick's shoulders. Rick visibly stiffened, likely alerted to the danger he was in by the smell of rotting meat. She used to believe that she was only imagining how bad the undead tended to smell. Now she knew that there was nobody in their right mind who could willfully concoct something as foul as the stench of the undead. Rick half-turned, knocking the walker back with his arm, but another walker joined the first, it's mouth making chewing motions and its fingers opening and closing like a vice as they reached out for their intended prey.

"Honey?" she managed to croak around the huge boulder stuck in her throat. "Please, tell me you can drop one of those things from here."

"Mhm," was the only thing Daryl said as a reply.

Kat breathed out a sigh of relief that turned out to be short lived when she saw that the two walkers weren't the worst of what Rick and Glenn had to worry about. There was a swarm behind them that was an even larger concern than the two were. Two shots rang out - one from Rick's gun and the other from another that came from across the way - slamming into the middle of the walkers' foreheads and spraying what brain matter was contained inside their skulls, shooting out from the back. Kat twisted her head around to see who had fired the second shot and sent up a prayer when she spotted a glimpse of short-cropped red hair peeking out from amidst the wall of walkers from the trees on the opposite side of the road. The rest of the group - sans Carol, Carl, Jackson and the babies who would have rightly remained at the farmhouse - burst into the glade, weapons drawn and at the ready.

"Shit..." Daryl muttered less than a second later.

Every muscle clenched at hearing that single word. "What?" The question tripped off her lips even as she swung her gaze back to the melee. "What is it?"

"Look at Rick."

Kat flicked her eyes to where Rick was reloading his gun, looking oddly detached and weirdly relaxed.

As if he wasn't even bothering to  _try_  and survive the hordes attack.

Kat felt as if she'd been plunged straight into the middle of the absolute worst scenario she'd ever imagined finding herself getting dropped into. Rick was definitely there physically, but he had clocked out emotionally. His eyes had an empty, almost vacant look to them that told her that he didn't give a damn about what happened today because he'd already decided that there wasn't going to be a tomorrow. Not for him, anyway.

"Daryl-"

"You think you can get to him?"

His question disrupted her chaotic thoughts. "What?"

"You the one who runs like a damn deer, ain't you?"

"Yeah..." Her forehead puckered as she tried to reason out what exactly he was asking her. "Daryl, I-"

"Can you get to Rick or not, Katherine?"

That Daryl used her full name told her how rattled he was by the situation. Kat glanced to where Rick was fighting off three walkers, gauging the distance that was between them and quickly estimating how fast she'd have to be in order to reach him before the incoming mass could.

"Can you?" he asked again as he loaded a bolt into his crossbow.

"Yes." She gave a quick nod. "I can."

"Then get a goin'."

It wasn't like Daryl had to ask her twice. Kat took off across the glade as a ragtag group of undead stumbled towards Rick and Glenn. Abraham and the others opened fire, their guns barking fire and filling up the rank air with the smell of cordite. Some of the creatures fell in the bursts of gunfire, but Kat knew they wouldn't remain down for long. Others took errant bullets to their chest and abdominal cavities, barely flinching at the pain, most not even recognizing that they'd been shot, much less wounded. The horde of undead continued forward with steadfast determination, unbelievable precision, and full of deadly intent. One of the walkers, a blonde woman who had not been turned long by the looks of her, stumbled towards Rick, whining pathetically with her want for sustenance.

"Rick!" she puffed out. "Get down!"

Rick made to turn, prepared to meet death face-to-face, but Kat tackled him to the ground, lying half across him, covering him as automatic fire showered them in blood and bone fragments. Rick tried to get up, but Kat forced him back down as more gunfire exploded overhead. She was a small woman, barely reaching the top of his chest, and not packing enough weight to pin a man like him to the ground. Not that she much cared about that at that particular moment. He nudged her off, attempting to get back up, to rejoin the fight that was still going on all around them, but she just growled at him too, "Stay down!" in a tone that suggested he mind himself or suffer the consequences.

"What in the Sam Hill is wrong with you?" she demanded. She was about to blister his hide for forgetting about his kids but decided at last minute that in the middle of a life-or-death battle wasn't necessarily the time or place for them to have that sort of conversation.  _Just you wait_ , she told him silently.  _Soon as we get home, I'm gonna flay your hide for up and decidin' to toss in the towel like this_. There was the familiar  _thwack_  of a crossbow bolt being fired before Daryl called out, "Kat?" as he loaded another bolt. "You and Rick, a'ight?"

"Yeah, honey," she told him as she slowly got to her feet. "We're a'ight."

She stood there for a minute staring down at Rick, seeing the glassy, faraway expression, the resolute set to his jaw, the single-minded determination that still wreathed his bearded face. It was the look of a man who had completely checked out of reality, who had accepted he was about to die and who wasn't really inclined to care about anything other than meeting his maker once he finished kicking some ass, first. Accepting fate, understanding that at any given point that they could die, it was something Kat had long since come to grips with. None of them were capable of evading the Grim Reaper.  _Can't cheat Death forever_ , she thought before she offered to help him up to his feet. However, he had kids who needed him, who looked to him to set the tone, who still relied on him for their survival. Being a parent meant you had to fight even harder in order to survive. She knew the moment when Rick was plunged back into reality because his eyes cleared and his face became filled by a sea of guilt and regret.

"Kat-"

"Don't." Fear had grabbed her by the throat so that the single word was barely a squeak of sound. Against Rick's, her fingers trembled, the only outward sign of how shaken up she really was by what she'd just seen. "Don't," she repeated when she had a bit more control over herself. "We can talk about it all later, Rick." Her fingers turned and closed around his, squeezing lightly. "C'mon now," she commanded. "Get up on your feet."

"Still-" he insisted, but she cut him off by tugging on his hand.

"We all get a lil' crazy, honey."

_That had been more a whole lot more than a man going a lil' crazy_ , she thought as the memory faded. What Rick had been about to do had bordered upon committing suicide. She told herself that she shouldn't be surprised. Not after the night terror she'd see him suffer a few days before. She could talk Rick through his dreams; get him to see the nightmares for what they were. It was the waking memories that she knew were going to be the absolute hardest to fight. That Rick Grimes was walking a very fine line emotionally was pretty evident to all of them now. She should have expected something like this, should have known that whatever bullshit was swirling around inside his head was bad enough that it could cause him to have a break with reality.

Boone had come home from his second deployment hanging upon this very same precipice. He'd suffered nightmares as terribly as Rick, had moments where he'd be confronted by his memories and whatever past actions he'd been involved in while overseas. PTSD complicated by survivor's guilt and with a huge helping of depression was what the army shrinks had diagnosed him as suffering from. They'd suggested intensive therapy, prescribed him a medicine cabinet of happy pills, and told her and the rest of the family that it would just take time for him to get better. Things had seemed to be going okay in the beginning. Boone had still had small outbursts and would wake occasionally screaming, but the incidents occurred with less frequently and intensity.

Then little things: a car backfiring, the sound of a child screaming down the street, the wind whistling through the trees all started causing him to go off. At first, they'd all assumed it was a natural progression of his disorders and that adjusting his medications would help slow down the outbursts. The night that Boone tried to swallow a bullet was when they had realized just how deeply messed up her brother actually had been. Collectively, they'd decided to hospitalize him in order to get him the psychiatric help he needed.  _However_...

_There ain't no hospitals now that we can do that with Rick._

No hospitals, no doctors trained in psychiatric medicine, no psychotropic drugs in which to help manage and maintain the various disorders. It was yet another vivid reminder about how much this cold and cruel world had taken from them. For a moment, she wondered what this world- this sick and sadistic world that had managed to take away so much from a people who had so damned little- would try and throw at them next. Something told her that she didn't want to know the answer.

"We're gonna need to keep an eye on Rick," she murmured as a lone gust of wind swirled some leaves on the ground. "Today was no isolated incident. Probably been other moments like this that nobody noticed 'cause of whatever shit was going on at the time." She shivered as she saw again Rick's empty eyes in a face coated in sweat and blood. "We'll need to be even more vigilant than we have been."

Daryl was quiet for several seconds. Finally, he stirred and said, "Yup."

" _Yup_?" One eyebrow forked. "That's all you gotta say?  _Yup_?"

He sniffed and bent his head to look at her. "I ain't the one who likes to chirp just to hear herself makin' noise."

She rolled her eyes. "I ain't chirpin' 'cause I like the sound of my own voice."

"Right," he scoffed. "If you weren't tweetin' about this, you'd be tweetin' about something else."

Kat harrumphed and tucked her head beneath Daryl's chin. "Kinda important that we discuss this, Rambo."

"How many times I gotta tell you that I ain't no Rambo?" he grumbled.

"At least once more," she lightly teased. "Like always."

Daryl just rolled his eyes as a light mist began to fall. "Need to find somewhere that is safer than this place. Can't help Rick if he is constantly worryin' 'bout the safety of the group."

She slid her fingers between his, squeezed lightly. "I think that we can make this place safe, actually." She angled her head to look at him. "I think we can make this place home, in fact."

Daryl curled his free arm around her and made a low humming sound deep in his throat. "Got too many places where we can't see things comin'," he told her plainly. "Would need to be able to build walls in order to keep out walkers and any damn body else who will wanna try and take us out." His sigh tickled the hair at her temple. "Ain't just the damn geeks we gotta worry 'bout gettin' us."

"Then we build some walls to keep the worst of what we can out," she replied in a cool, logical tone. "And set out traps where we can't put walls in order to alert us to any danger that's comin'."

"Yeah?" he rumbled. "And just what sorta traps you thinkin' we can set?"

She stared out over the mist-covered grounds while considering his question. "Well, I'm thinking we can put barbed wire along the edge of the property to start with. And we can set out bear traps, dig pits and trenches, and stick wood spikes into the ground that the walkers would get stuck on."

She felt his chest rumble with amusement. "Where the hell you learn all this shit, Xena?"

"One of the men who lived with is for a time taught us some ways in which to defend whatever sanctuary we found from attacks."

"Mm."

She heard the slight twinge that flavored his voice same as he did. Not in jealousy- he knew full well that there was nothing that happened between her and any other man since they'd parted- but in envy that another man had been there to do the job that he felt was his, alone, to do.

"We can't live in yesterday, honey." She reached up to lay her hand against his cheek. "Not if we finally wanna have all those tomorrows' we been promisin' ourselves we'd have once we managed to finally catch up with the other."

"Yeah."

She slid into his lap, sighing as she lay her forehead against his. Through the dense clouds to the right of them, Kat could see the first streaks of color announcing the coming of dawn, the pale burn cutting a swath across the sky that promised hope and redemption. Laying her hand over Daryl's heart, she timed its beats to her own. And knew that the future was theirs for the taking.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hello m'dears and welcome! Let's get the legal mumbo jumbo out of the way right off—I own nothing here but for my original story concept and my cast of original characters. I promise to return the Walking Dead cast to their owners in a gently used condition once I am done.
> 
> Please, if you like this story, bookmark it!


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